Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos!
by The Pixled Soul
Summary: Updated! After an attempt by Dr. Eggman and Bowser to both escape their worlds, Sonic is stranded in the Mushroom Kingdom, while Mario finds himself on Mobius! Now Sonic must collect the seven Heart Crystals, while Mario finds the Chaos Emeralds.
1. Depression and Rage, a Plan is Hatched

**Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos!**

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Author's Notes: This is my very first story written for I do not claim ownership over any characters mentioned in the story. All characters are either property of Nintendo or SEGA, and this story is for entertainment only (because I don't want to get sued). Also, notes and pointers from the author will be written in quotes such as these throughout the story when needed. One more thing, this story is heavily inspired by Sonic Rush, New Super Mario Bros., the Mario RPG games especially the Paper Mario series, and the Sonic the Hedgehog comics, get 'em while they're hot!

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**Chapter 1: Depression and Rage, a Plan is Hatched**

Our story begins on a small, blue and green planet known by as Mobius; a prosperous little planet that is similar to, if not the same as, our own planet Earth. The specific location on Mobius, where we begin, is a city known as New Megaopolis; a large, very pollutant, and practically barren city, with the exception of a few hundred robots. This city is also the home of the evil and infamous scientist, Dr. Ivo Robotnik, a.k.a. Dr. Eggman to some. It is here, in New Megaopolis, that we find a sleeping Robotnik in the approaching dawn.

7:28 a.m., the evil tyrant was quiet and motionless in his bed. 7:29 a..m., the doctor rolled over and grunted, but was still fast asleep. 7:30 a.m., the clock radio beside his bed filled the room with noise, as it turned on the radio.

"GOOD MORNING MOBIUS!", the announcer on the radio station ecstatically yelled, "This in RBNK, on 91.6, New Megaopolis's #1 radio station, and this is what we have for you today!" The doctor opened his eyes groggily and got out of bed. He was wearing a white, sleeveless undershirt, and blue striped boxers. As he did this, the announcer on RBNK continued. "The weather for today is mostly sunny with some clouds moving in later on in the day with a high of 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Chance of rain: 22." Eggman looked out his window into his dark city. His cold blue eyes stared at the bright blue sky. He started to stroke his long, hairy mustache. As he did this, he began to think to himself.

'It's a beautiful day out today.', he thought, 'I bet Sonic is outside right now sleeping, while basking in the warmth of the sun.' It was at that moment, that Dr. Robotnik's mood suddenly changed from tired and groggy, to depressed and unmotivated. It was obvious that something was wrong about Eggman today. He usually had a little glimmer in his eye, and a smug, little smirk on his face, meaning that he had something absolutely dastardly planed for that day. But today, his eyes were just dull blue, and there was neither a smile or a frown on his face. Just the very thought of his blue arch nemesis, and his perky little friends, made him sick to the stomach. After one last glance of the outside world, Robotnik gave out a long sigh, and flatly mumbled out the word "Whatever.", as he walked toward his dresser to get ready for his day.

The downhearted doctor pick up his mini glasses, and placed them right on the bridge of his nose, as this was how he always wore them. He then made a grab for his metallic goggles. He usually wore these on the top of his bald head, but rarely ever used them. They were more for his looks. But, as he held them in his hands, he decided against the goggles for today, and slowly placed them back on the dresser. He picked up his white gloves, which he was never, normally, seen without on either. After some thought, the doctor sighed again, and put them back on the dresser, next to his goggles. Eggman opened his closet door. It was practically empty, except only three things that hung in there: his normal duds; which was a red tailcoat with four large yellow bottons on the front, and his black, latex pants that included his black boots, his classic clothes; which he wore in his younger days, a red shirt with a giant yellow collar, and a black pair of pants with two white bottons in the front, and finally, a light blue bathrobe. Robotnik didn't even think about it this time. He just grabbed the blue bathrobe and quietly slipped it on.

The torn up tyrant made his way to the kitchen, and he opened the fridge. There was some milk, last night's Chinese food, and some eggs. He quickly closed it and opened his freezer. Inside were some frozen waffles, a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, a stack or two of frozen t.v. dinners, and a tray of ice cubes. He grabbed a spoon, and chose the Rocky Rode ice cream as his breakfast.

With the tub of ice cream in hand, he gloomily walked into his den, which to some people would be a technological paradise, and sat down in his recliner. He grabbed the remote control for the televison in front of him, and turned it on. The doctor now began to channel surf, while shoveling spoonfuls of ice cream into his mouth. This went on for another three minutes, until he was interrupted by a voice that was very familiar to him.

"_Good morning father._", the voice had said cheerfully. Dr. Eggman ignored the voice, and shoved some more Rocky Road into his mouth. "_Good morning father._" the voice repeated. Eggman ignored it again and continued flipping through channels. "_Father?_", the voice questioned him. Robotnik couldn't ignore him much longer. Finally, he turned to his right ride to see what looked like a giant computer system. This was his latest invention, his new computer son, and humble servant, N.O.A.H. Stands for N.asty O.verriding A.pocalyptical H.ardware. N.O.A.H. is a loyal computer "son", that tends to Robotnik's every need, such a monitoring security cameras, or keeping stock count on Robotnik's weapons, for example. He was inspired by Eggman's former computer children, E.V.E. and A.D.A.M.

"Oh, hello N.O.A.H.", Eggman had greeted him glumly " How are you?"

"_Father? Are you all right? You're not acting yourself today. My scans show that you have no major illnesses. If my data banks read correctly, aren't you scheduled to be working on you're latest project to take over the world today? _The doctor took his eyes of his "son" and stared sadly at the t.v. screen.

"Oh, THAT... yeah I was", Dr. Robotnik replied, "But I've been doing some very serious thinking this morning, N.O.A.H., and I think that maybe it was about time I called the whole Eggman Empire thing quits, for good this time." N.O.A.H. hardly knew how to respond to this.

"_...May I ask why father?_", N.O.A.H. had asked this creator. The doctor gave out a long sigh and continued to flip through the channels on the t.v.

"N.O.A.H., in all the months that you've served me, do you have any idea how many times I've tried to conquer our world?", Eggman questioned with some irritation in his voice.

N.O.A.H. had responded, " _My data banks can not give out a confirmed answer,_ translation: I don't know _six, possibly seven times?_" Eggman sank lower into his recliner.

"Hmph, try twenty-eight times! And do you know why my plans to take over the world, and construct the Eggman Empire always fail? It's because that irritating Sonic the Hedgehog, and all of his pathetic friends, get in my way EVERY TIME!" Robotnik had angrily explained.

"_How so father? Could you please elaborate?_" N.O.A.H. asked his "father".

"I've noticed that I seem to be in a rut. Every time I attempted world domination, I would always build a giant, super weapon, that required the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds. And every time I tried to collect the emeralds, either Sonic, or one of his friends would get to them before me or my robots, and then beat me to a bloody pulp! If I keep losing twenty-eight times in a row to the same people, it only shows that I'm just going to have my plans foiled again and again and again by Sonic! I have to face the facts that as long as I am in the same world as Sonic the Hedgehog and co., I'll never be able to conquer the world, and the glorious Eggman Empire will never exist. So I've come to the decision to retire early, and quit while I'm behind, to save myself the humiliation of another defeat.", Robotnik fully explained. He stopped channel surfing, as he found a program he liked., "OOOOOO, The Oprah Winfrey show is on! He shoved some more ice cream into his mouth.

For a while, there was silence in the room. Robotnik was concentrating on Oprah, and N.O.A.H. seemed deep into thought. It was almost like N.O.A.H. was searching for something inside of him. Finally, after about ten of fifteen minutes of Oprah, N.O.A.H. had suggested something that would change Eggman's entire outlook on things.

"_Father, you stated that as long as you were in the same world as Sonic the Hedgehog and co., you would not be able to conquer the world. Why don't you just go to a different world and conquer that one?_" The sound of this made him turn around to stare at his "son". He put the television on mute, so see could get a better hear at what he thought he just heard.

"What did you just say?!" Dr. Eggman asked with a mix of shock and humor in his voice.

"_Forgive me father, but I have just done some light research on those Chaos Emeralds that you had mentioned. Apparently, these seven gems have an unlimited source of mystic energies and power. While they can be used as magnets to attract or repel each other, and other forms of mystic energy, they may also be used to travel throughout the fabric of space and time to many different places, or in some cases, different times_! _You are familiar with_ _the term:_ _Chaos Control, are you not?_", Eggman nodded at his son. He was very familiar with chaos control. He has seen it first hand. Especially since it was what Shadow the Hedgehog, a Sonic look a like whom was a former ally of Dr. Eggman, was best known for. Not to mention the fact that Dr. Eggman, himself, used chaos control once see Sonic Advanced 3 for details.

"I think I see where you're going with this!", Robotnik stated with some interest. "Your stating that if I use the power of the chaos emeralds to use chaos control, I can, in theory, transport myself to an alternate world. One without Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, or Cream. Without them to stop me, I could easily take over that world, and finally build the empire that I deserve so much!"

"_Exactly! And if I remember correctly father, aren't you currently in possession of one of the emeralds already?_" N.O.A.H.asked. Dr. Robotnik had to think about this for a minute.

"Why yes, I believe I am. That's right, I remember! One of my robots had discovered it about two weeks ago while on the outskirts of New Megaopolis. I believe it's been in storage ever since. N.O. A.H., would you kindly send a message to the robot in charge of storage to bring up the emerald to me immediately? Eggman asked.

"_Certainly father._" N.O.A.H. replied. As Dr. Eggman waited patiently for his robot to deliver the emerald to him, so many thoughts were rushing in his head.

'This is it. This could be it! If this theory is correct, I might finally be able to be rid of that hedgehog and his annoying friends for good. No more Sonic the Hedgehog! No Sonic! No Tails! No Knuckles! No Amy! No Cream! No Chaotix! No Shadow! No Rouge! No more meddlesome pests! Just me, my robots, and my empire. Without Sonic and Tails in this new world, I can construct the Eggman Empire in a snap. I guess it really doesn't matter **where** it is, just as long as it is there to rule over something... or someone.' It was just then, that one of Dr. Robotnik's badniks entered the den. It was an average Eggman robot; short round and orange and in it's hands, was a small, shiny, grey gem resting on top of a fancy purple pillow with yellow frills. Robotnik immediately snagged it from his mechanical servant, without so much as a 'thank you'.As he held it, he couldn't help but chuckle.

"_Of course, it's one thing to travel anywhere on Mobius, but to travel to a whole other dimension, huge amounts of energy are required. It will take you more than just one emerald to transport yourself that far. We will have to begin a search for AT LEAST one other Chaos Emerald immediately!_" N.O.A.H. had instructed. Dr. Eggman fiddled with the Chaos Emerald in his fingers, then sat up straight in his seat.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that." Themaniacal madman said, now with a smug little smirk on his face, and a twinkle in his eye. "By the time that little blue rat finds out what I'm up to, I bet I'll be long gone. And besides, if this plan of ours works, and I am able to travel to an alternate dimension, I'll be unstoppable! No one would try to foil my plans there! Not this time! Who would even DARE to try to stop me? I ask you WHO?!

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We now temporarily take our leave from New Megaopolis. Actually, we now take our leave from all of Mobius on that note. For our story continues on another world. A blue and green planet, like Mobius, except this is a planet known to the locals as the Mushroom World. The specific location: a place known by as the Koopa Kingdom. This small kingdom is a dark and evil place, run by anthropomorphic human-like turtles called koopa troopas. We bring our attention to a huge certain castle, located on a ledge surrounded almost completely by hot molten lava. This castle is the home to the king of the Koopa Kingdom, the brute tyrant known as King Bowser, or just Bowser for short. It is here, that we find the big lizard king caught in a fit of rage.

"RRARGH! That's it! I can't take it anymore! I'm at my limit!", King Bowser had angrily yelled.

"Your evilness, sir, please, remember your blood pressure!" ,Bowser's evil assistant and servant, Kammy Koopa, practically begged in a sad attempt to calm down the king.

"No! I can't stand him! He does this to me every time! He makes me so mad, I could... I could... BLARGH!", And just like that, Bowser let out a huge breath of fire, accidentally charring many of his own troops badly.

"Sir, stop! Your men!", Kammy had yelled. Bowser calmed down enough to stop his flames. He looked around the room, and glanced at his badly burnt troops. His goombas, his koopa troopas, his magikoopas, and his hammer bros. received the most damage. He sadly shrugged.

"Sorry... I guess I lost control.", Bowser apologized. Although, Kammy could tell by the look in the king's eyes that he was about to lose it again.

"What happened? Was it the Super Mario Bros.? Did they thwart your plans again?", Kammy Koopa asked sympathetically. Just the names of his arch enemies filled Bowser with pent up rage. After a long pause of silence, Bowser finally answered.

"Yes!", the tyrant angrily answered, "It's just that Mario! He's just broke my last good nerve!"

"What did he do this time?", Kammy had asked with a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"Oh, the usual, I tried to kidnap the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom again last night. This time, Mario and his annoying brother stopped me before I could even make it out the bloody door!", Bowser responded irritably.

"Hmmm, that's a new record for them. Your losing your touch.", Kammy Koopa stated jokingly. The king was not amused. If anything, he kind of took it seriously.

"You know what, I think you're right.", said King Bowser, "To be honest, for some time now, I've noticed that my life has been in some sort of sad pattern. I kidnap Princess Peach, Mario goes after her, I send out my troops, he defeats them and makes it to my castle, we fight, I'm beaten an inch from my life, he saves Peach, and I end up worse than when I started out!", There was another pause of silence. "Not to mention all the times Mario has thwarted my plans of world domination, and the overthrowing of the other kingdoms of this planet!" Bowser sighed "I'm getting old Kammy. In about ten, maybe fifteen years, I'll probably be gone, and this kingdom of ours will crumble into the ground... more so. I know I can't trust the kingdom with any of my eight children. None of the are mature, nor experienced enough to hold the thrown."

"Oh sir.", Kammy had sympathetically said, "... Are you having another mid-life crises?", The Koopa King stared at her strangely.

"What?! NO!", Bowser had denied, "What I'm saying is that I'm starting to wonder whether or not are attempts to overthrow the Mushroom Kingdom are worth it! I mean... we're gonna have to face the facts. No matter how many times I've tried to accomplish something important to me, the Mario Bros. have always been there to spoil all my plans. And no matter how hard, or how many times I will try, Mario will always be there to stop me, no matter what." Bowser sighed again, "I'm just going to have to accept that as long as Mario is here to protect this world, the Koopa Kingdom will never flourish.", Kammy Koopa was staring blankly into space at first, but then, she jolted into attention, as if she was shocked with electricity.

"Wait, what? What did you just say? Say that again!", Kammy Koopa had instructed nervously.

"What?", Bowser asked in a confused tone.

"That last part you said! Repeat that again!", Kammy had ordered more demandingly this time.

"What? All I said was that as long as Mario is here to protect this world, the Koopa Kingdom will never flourish." King Bowser stated confusedly. "Why? What's up?", Kammy didn't answer her master at first. She just had this solemn look on her face, as if she was deep in thought.

"Your evilness... how far would you go to be rid of Mario once and for all, and to bring the Koopa Kingdom back up from the grimy depths of the mud?", Kammy had asked seriously. Her eyes were not set on her master.

"Uhhhh... pretty far I guess. Hey, what's this all about?", the king asked suspiciously. Kammy Koopa had ignored Bowser's question completely.

"Would you really?", She asked even more seriously this time, "Would you risk losing everything you have? Would you even risk never seeing the faces of the ones that you hold dear again? Your children? Me? Even Princess Peach?" Hearing all of this shocked Bowser very much! He just couldn't help but think.

'What is going on here? Just what is Kammy getting at? It **would** be sweet to finally be rid of that meddling plumber, Mario! But, would I really risk losing everything for the Koopa Kingdom? Even the ones I hold dear? Well, the kids could buzz off for all I care, but the princess? My dear, sweet Peach? I could never leave her. I would never leave her. But then again... it would be for the good of the kingdom, it would be for the good my troops, it would be for the good of my honor, but most importantly, it would be for the lack of Mario!' Bowser shut his eyes, grew a very sad, but cold, face on him, and then answered his magical assistant in a low, serious voice, "Yes. Yes I would. I am the king of this land, and for once, I must look out for what is best for it. Also, I loath the Mario Brothers. I seriously do! And if there is a way for me... for us... to never see their faces again...", Bowser then opened his eyes, and grew an angry, but hopeful expression on his face, "... then I'll do whatever it takes!!!", After saying this, the koopa king then let out a triumphed roar! Kammy Koopa was now able to look at her king. Never in her years of servitude had she ever heard King Bowser sound so serious about this matter before. He even went as far as passing up Princess Peach, his one true love! After she let out one long sigh, see managed to speak.

"Alright then, I'm convinced.", she quietly said to her king. Slowly, Kammy took her left hand, and put it into the sleeve of her right hand. Bowser soon realized that she was reaching for something up her sleeve. When she found what she was looking for, she pulled it out from her sleeve. After studying it from his distance, Bowser noticed that what Kammy had was a key. It was an old key that was black with some rust on it. On the handle of the key, there was the imprint of a small silver heart. Kammy glanced over to one of the able bodied Koopa Troopas and motioned one over to her with her finger. The Koopa slowly walked toward Kammy with a nervous look on his face. With extreme care, Kammy gently placed the small key into the Koopa's palm. She then cleared her throat.

"Take this key down to the vault found beneath the catacombs of this castle. Bring the you-know-what up here, to your king, post haste! I think it's about time he learned about it's secret.", she instructed. The Koopa's facial expression grew from nervous to serious. He knew what Kammy was talking about. The Koopa Troopa nodded, and marched out of the room, and down the corridor. Bowser, at this point, was so confused, it wasn't even funny. The king began to grow frustrated with Kammy Koopa; he couldn't take it much longer! His anger began to rise again.

"Now wait just a minute Kammy! I'm getting tired of you leaving me in the dark about all this! I demand that you tell me what is going on, and that you tell me NOW!", the king roared out. Kammy couldn't help but sigh again.

"I had a feeling this day would come. Ever since you started pursuing Princess Peach and the Mario Brothers, I knew it wouldn't be long before it came to THIS. Sir... have you ever heard of the Heart Crystals before?", the old magikoopa asked. Bowser thought deeply about this.

"Hmmm... Heart Crystals... Heart Crystals...nope, I can't say that I have.", Bowser responded

"That's okay, I didn't think you would have", Kammy continued, "In this world, there are several mystical gems known as Heart Crystals. Actually, there are seven to be exact. Anyway, these seven Heart Crystals were once the ultimate source of power years ago. They could be used to gain unbelievable power, attract or repel themselves or other forms of mystical energy, or most importantly, travel through space and times, to other worlds unlike ours! Unfortunately, centuries ago, something catastrophic almost happened, that almost meant the end to our world, and another neighboring world. Apparently, the Heart Crystals seemed to be the main route of the problem. After the problem was fixed, they were considered too dangerous to ever to be together again. So, to prevent another tragedy like that, the seven Heart Crystals were split up, and one each was given to seven trustworthy kingdoms, to guard in their castles, in hopes that they would never fall into the wrong hands. Your great-great-great-great grandfather was given one of the Heart Crystals to guard when he was king, back when the Koopa Kingdom was still a peaceful and friendly kingdom. Unlike you, your ancestor was a kind and trustworthy king. On his death bed, he gave and entrusted his loyal assistant, whom was my great-great-great grandfather, with the key to the Heart Crystal, and requested that the key be passed down through my ancestor's bloodline, and not to tell the future kings of the Koopa Kingdom about the existence of the Heart Crystal, unless of an emergency, for he feared that one of you would one day betray the other kingdoms, and want to use it's power to do unthinkable things. For years, things were quiet, and then you came into power, and then...", Kammy trailed off.

"Yeah, and then I betrayed the other kingdoms, and tried to overthrow them with my troops.", King Bowser said, finishing Kammy's sentence.

"Yes, well, that key has been given to my great-great-great grandfather, my great-great grandmother, my great grandmother, my grandfather, even my father Kamek. I don't know if Kammy's and Kamek's blood connection is real, but would explain why Kamek was only Bowser's assistant during his younger years, and not his adult years, and where Kammy came from. And now, the key is in my possession.", Kammy continued, "Since our kingdom is in danger of collapsing by Mario, I feel that this stands as an emergency! Sir, you might lose Peach, and everyone else here, but if we are ever going to survive from Mario and his brother, we're going to have to give up on the Mushroom World, and rebuild somewhere else!" Bowser was starting to understand Kammy Koopa's idea.

"So... what your saying is that we need this Heart Crystal thingy to escape to another world, so we can be rid of Mario for good, and rule the Koopa Kingdom without trouble of conquering the world?", Bowser asked. The Koopa Troopa, at that moment, walked back into the thrown room with the Heart Crystal. It was a medium sized, heart shaped, grey crystal, resting on a red pillow with yellow frills. It was also under a glass case for extra protection. King Bowser removed the glass case, picked up the Heart Crystal in his hand, and thanked his minion.

"Well... your partially correct.", Kammy had stated, "You see, to rip open the space time continuum and travel to a different world, a lot of mystical energy is needed. Only one Heart Crystal will hardly get you anywhere. You should collect all seven, but in order to travel, you would most likely need one more crystal." Bowser kept his eyes on the crystal he was holding.

"I see." Bowser said. After one more pause of silence, Bowser asked, " Do you have any idea which castles are holding the other Heart Crystals?"

"Actually", Kammy replied with a toying tone of voice, " I do happen to know that when the seven crystals were separated, one of them was given to the Mushroom Kingdom to guard." The sound of this filled the king with both anger and determination, mostly determination. But, would Bowser really risk breaking into Peach's castle twice in two days?

"I'll do it.", Bowser passionately replied "I'll get the Heart Crystals and travel to a distant world. I don't care what it takes, and besides with the Mario Brothers out of the way, nothing will stop me from conquering the world! I suppose it doesn't matter what world I conquer, as long as I conquer it." King Bowser proclaimed. He then pointed at one of his Hammer Bros., developed some more emotion in his voice and commanded, "You there! Go report to all of my remaining able bodied troops. Tell them that we attack the Mushroom Kingdom at dawn!"

"Uhhhhh, sir", the Hammer Bro. said, "It IS dawn."

"Oh, really?!" Bowser embarrassedly realized, "Well then, tell them that we attack the Mushroom Kingdom NOW!!!"

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**So, what do you think of the story so far? I know that a Mario/Sonic crossover is not the most original idea for a story here on FanFic, but what the heck? I seriously want to apologize for such a long chapter, but it takes a while to fully explain the story. In case you were wondering, NO, the story isn't going to fully revolve around Dr. Eggman and Bowser. This chapter was so you could understand the antagonists' motivations before the adventure really began. On that note, I have no idea when the next chapter will be out. It could be a few weeks, or a month, I don't really know! Anyway, please leave reviews, tell me what you honestly think of the story**, **and thank you for reading! **


	2. Mario vs Bowser vs Sonic vs Eggman

**Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos!**

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Author's Notes: I do not claim ownership over any characters mentioned in this story (except for N.O.A.H., he's mine)! Any characters in this story are either owned by Nintendo or SEGA, and this story is for entertainment only! Now that's out of the way... hello readers! Yes, it took me a while, but I finally finished the second chapter. I'd like to thank everybody who has enjoyed the story so far, and everyone that left a review. I would also like to apologize for some technical difficulties from the first chapter. In chapter one's author notes, I claimed that certain bits of information by the author would be left in certain quotes. For some reason, when the chapter was published onto FanFic, the quotes never appeared on the finished document for reasons unknown! Because of this, there might have been some confusion, especially during dialog scenes, like Kammy Koopa's bloodline speech for example, where it looked like they were speaking to themselves in third person. I fixed the problem, from now on, author tips will appear in a new form (like this) to avoid any confusion. **Warning: This is a VERY long chapter. Any of those who have short attention spans, or get bored easily, would be advised to leave now! **Now, without further delay, I present to you Chapter 2!!

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**Chapter 2: Mario vs. Bowser vs. Sonic vs. Eggman**

Our story continues still on the Mushroom World. The location of our continuation is the infamous Mushroom Kingdom. The specific location is on the outskirts of the castle of the kingdom's ruler, Princess Peach. The location was a good distance from Peach's castle, really. Close enough to have the kingdom in plain view, but far enough not to be seen by the guards of the castle. It was the perfect place for King Bowser to assemble his troops for an attack. And it is here that we find him doing just that. The time was about 8:30 a.m. The sun was high in the sky, and it's rays were flooding over the hills of the Mushroom Kingdom, onto Bowser and his troops. The evil king scoffed at the sun's rays in disgust while he prepared his troops for one of the most important raids his kingdom has ever known. The koopa king had his troops in neat and straight rows. His smaller and weaker henchmen took the front line, while his taller and much stronger men stood in the back rows. All of them had serious and emotionless looks on their faces. They seemed more than prepared to attack, but for some reason, Bowser ordered them to hold back, not to attack just yet. He just kept staring ahead at the Princess's castle. Almost like he was waiting for some sort of sign or signal. After about a good twenty minutes of waiting, just as the troops were getting impatient, Bowser finally spotted the sign he was waiting for.

Off in the distance, Bowser saw two tiny specks flying from Peach's castle towards him and his troops. As the two speck got closer and bigger, the koopa king realized it was the two servants that he had sent out earlier to infiltrate the castle, and search for the location of the Mushroom Kingdom's Heart Crystal. It was a paragoomba (a goomba with wings) and Bowser's most trusted servant, of course, Kammy Koopa. Kammy was flying towards him on her classic broomstick with the grey and purple straws, with something clutched in her hand. When they reached the rendevous point, Kammy and the paragoomba landed to give their leader a full report.

"What did you learn?", Bowser asked impatiently, "My men are growing reckless."

"Your nastiness, our mission was successful.", Kammy replied, "Getting inside was the easy part. This castle's security system is terrible... as usual. After a while of creeping around the castle's halls and passage ways, we discovered where they are keeping the Heart Crystal. But, it was too heavily protected for us to take out. We were, however, able to trace the route and room of it on this map of the castle, just like you instructed." Kammy handed the map to Bowser. He examined the map for some time.

"Hmmmm... this seems simple enough", he mumbled to himself. After a few more seconds of examination, he stowed away the map. "Alright then...", Bowser said, getting ready. He stepped in front of his army, Kammy right behind him, and he cleared his throat, getting ready for one last inspirational speech. " My dear evil minions", he started out, " for years now you have all fought loyally under the Koopa Kingdom and under my rule, and for that I thank you. But, for years now, you...we... have also been pummeled time after time by the Mushroom Kingdom, and those meddlesome Mario Bros. What I'm trying to say, is that many of you may fall in battle today. Some of you may get squashed. Some of you may get scorched. Heck, some of you might even get smacked around with a sledgehammer or two.", Bowser paused, "But do not think of this as your final judgement day. Think of this as the redemption of our kingdom, the peak of your lives, your final confrontation with your biggest fears, and end of our troublesome MARIO!" And at this, the entire koopa army roared and cheered with inspiration. (This part kind of reminds me of that one scene in the movie, _Braveheart_, but without the face paint or the horses). Bowser then crouched down, getting ready to charge at the castle with his troops. "You all remember the plan! Distract the defenses, while I get the Heart Crystal!", the king instructed his men. "And remember, if ANY of you mess this up, I'll see to it that it will be the LAST mistake you'll ever make!", he menacingly warned his henchmen, "Everybody get in position... present weapons... keep your guard up...ready...and...", Bowser outstretched his finger, "ATTACK!!!"

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We will leave the Mushroom World for now, but we will soon be back, I assure you. For now, we set a new scene back on Mobius. The location is somewhere just outside of a place called Green Hill. Green Hill was a marvelous place, untouched by the cities of Mobius . It was almost always sunny in Green Hill, with rich green grass, dozens of palm trees, and waterfalls and rivers as far as the eye could see. All of the stone visible in Green Hill had an orange and brown checker pattern to it, which made it very unique. It seemed as if nothing could disturb this paradise. That is, however, until Dr. Robotnik arrived to this area. Just outside Green Hill, we find the famous tyrant traveling around Mobius in search of the remaining six Chaos Emeralds inside one of his earliest inventions, the Egg Mobile (that little air craft that he is always seen flying around in). Behind him, a small army of Eggman's robots followed. As Dr. Eggman viewed the screen of his emerald tracking radar, he was pleased to notice that signal was getting much stronger than before!

"_Father, just to inform you, we are now entering the Green Hill Zone._", N.O.A.H. had reported to his "father", Robotnik. The doctor had uploaded N.O.A.H.'s memory into the Egg Mobile before he left New Megaopolis, in case he needed it.

"Very good N.OA.H. And the Emerald Radar is going crazy! The next Chaos Emerald must be very close by, which means that it's only a matter of minutes until we'll be finally rid of that blasted hedgehog.", responded Dr. Eggman. He turned to his robots, "Find the emerald quickly! It's starting to get windy here." he commanded. Eggman and his robots stormed Green Hill, searching every nook and cranny for the emerald. Finally, after a couple of minutes of searching, the emerald was located. As Eggman was searching in the Egg Mobile with the radar, he had spotted it quietly resting under a palm tree by a large outcrop of the checkered stone. It was the red Chaos Emerald. Robotnik's grin grew wider, thinking that he finally beat the hedgehog to an emerald for once. Being too lazy to land his vehicle and retrieve it himself, Dr. Robotnik called over one of his robots from off in the distance. He pointed at the robot, and then the Chaos Emerald.

"You there, seize the emerald, quickly!", he demanded. The robot obliged, and walked toward the emerald. Eggman couldn't help but laugh. He could hardly keep back his excitement. "Hohohohoho, I finally did it! Now begins the glorious era of the Eggman Empire!", He shouted.

"_Congratulations Father_", said N.O.A.H. At this point, it seemed like nothing could stop Dr. Eggman now from achieving his goal of crossing worlds, but just as Eggman's robot bent over to retrieve the Chaos Emerald, one of the most peculiar things happened. Robotnik felt a very strong gust of wind. It was so strong, he had to shield his face. The wind was strong, but very short lived. When the wind subsided, Eggman opened his eyes he looked down at the spot of the emerald, only to be absolutely shocked. For some reason, the Chaos Emerald had suddenly vanished!

"WHAT?!", Dr. Robotnik screamed "What happened to the emerald?! There's no way that wind was strong enough to carry it away! Pan out! Turn Green Hill upside down if you have to! I WANT THAT CHAOS EMERALD!" At that instant, another gust of wind blew, but this time, in the opposite direction. The wind blew right past the robot that Eggman sent to retrieve the emerald before. Dr. Eggman got a good look at the wind this time, and noticed that it had a blue streak to it. The robot didn't move an inch. "What are you waiting for?! Go find the emerald!", Robotnik ordered impatiently. The robot still just stood there, motionless and soundless. Finally, another strange thing happened. That same motionless robot fell to pieces in front of it's creator's eyes. First it's left arm fell off, then it's right arm, then it's head, then it's right leg, then it finally just collapsed into one big pile of junk and scrap metal. Eggman was shocked speechless. 'This is getting weird.', he thought, 'First the emerald vanishes and now this? How could this have happened? I bet, somehow, that blue wind must have taken it apart, or mutilated it. But wait a minute, wind doesn't have color! Especially not blue. Wait... BLUE?!' After this thought, Robotnik shouted, "No! It can't be!"

But, unfortunately for him, it was. The blue wind appeared once more, this time. stopping under the palm tree that the emerald was found by. The wind stopped and took on a new form. This new form seemed more relaxed and chill. His back was casually leaned up under the palm tree, while his feet stood firmly on the scrap remains that was Eggman's robot. He was repeatedly tossing the formally missing red Chaos Emerald up and down in his hand. This being, Robotnik realized to his dismay, was none other than his arch enemy. It was the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog! This speedy blue hedgehog must have ran so fast, he seemed almost invisible to Robotnik's naked eye; nothing more than a blue blur. Calmly and playfully, Sonic the Hedgehog looked up at his foe and cooly said, " Hey Eggman! Longtime no see!" Robotnik was less than pleased to see the hedgehog, but regardless, he spoke to him.

"Hello rodent.", He started out, "That wasn't very nice of you to destroy my robot like that, but I believe you have something that's mine, so if you could just hand over that emerald you took, I just might forgive you for doing that." Robotnik stated snobbily. Sonic wasn't intimidated, although. He just put a serious look on his face.

"Eggman, what are you up to THIS time?", the hedgehog interrogated the doctor. Robotnik just smirked at his enemy.

"You know what hedgehog, with my new plan, the only thing that I find more shocking than you finding me all the way out here, is that you would actually WANT to stop me!" The hedgehog grew a very confused look on his face.

"What do you mean by that doctor?", Sonic asked suspiciously.

"That doesn't matter now, does it? What matters is that you hand over that Chaos Emerald before you run into some trouble!" Eggman threatened Sonic more demandingly this time. Sonic glanced at the Chaos Emerald he had in his hand, and then at Robotnik.

"Sorry, 'aint gonna happen buddy! You want this emerald so badly? You'll have to fight me for it!", answered Sonic the Hedgehog. Dr. Eggman did not seem too shocked by this answer. He just stared down coldly at his rival.

"Very well then, If that's how you want to play, get ready for a REAL Battle Royal!" Eggman answered. And with that, he pressed a little red button on the control board of the Egg Mobile, and it's bottom opened up, letting out his weapon of choice. It was a large wrecking ball that was attached by a chain from the Egg Mobile. The ball itself had an orange and brown checker pattern to it, just like the stones in Green Hill. "Scared hedgehog?", the doctor asked. Sonic didn't answer at first. He was too busy trying to hold back his laughter, which he failed to do in the end.

"snicker... snicker... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh man, your really losing your touch Eggman! You've tried to beat me with that lame wrecking ball in the past before, remember? It didn't work then, it won't work now!" Sonic exclaimed, laughing some more. (Play Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and Sonic Advance 1 to see the wrecking ball)

"Is that so?", Dr. Robotnik asked, "Are you that sure of yourself? Would you be willing to bet you life on that?" N.O.A.H. couldn't help but interrupt his creator.

"_Father, I hate to agree with the enemy, but you have to admit, you COULD have brought something a bit more...deadly._" he noted. Eggman secretly grew a nervous look on his face, leaned toward N.O.A.H., and whispered.

"I felt so confident that we would get the emerald before Sonic, I thought that this would be the only thing necessary. How was I supposed to know?", N.O.A.H. groaned at his creator's incompetence. Robotnik turned back to Sonic. "Ready rodent?", he coldly asked his spiky nemeses. Sonic grew a confident smirk on his face.

"Yeah Eggman. Let's do it, to it!", Sonic shouted playfully. And with that, Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Robotnik charged each other at the same time.

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Meanwhile, back on the Mushroom World, we find our story to be continued inside the castle of Princess Peach, ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom. In the throne room of the castle, we find that very princess conversing with two very familiar faces. The famous heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom, the Super Mario Bros.; Mario and Luigi. As you might have guessed, the castle was still recovering from Bowser's attempted kidnaping the night before.

"I really want to thank you two for staying the night here with me.", the princess thanked the two plumbers. "After Bowser's little break in last night, I just didn't feel safe alone, even with my personal guards."

"Hey, any time princess, don't worry about it." Luigi said in a thick Italian accent. (It's too hard to type the Italian accent into Luigi, so just use your imagination for the rest of the story okay?) Luigi turned to his older brother. "Right Mario?", Luigi asked. Mario nodded in agreement. "We'll just be heading home now, see ya Peach" Luigi yelled off, while leaving the room with his brother. The two brothers tried to leave, but before they could reach the door, someone alarmingly came running into the throne room, almost knocking Mario and Luigi to the ground. It was a Toad; a very common type of citizen in the Mushroom Kingdom. Toads look just like humans, except when they are born, each one has a mushroom on the top of their head. Except this wasn't just any Toad. This toad was Princess Peach's longtime steward, Toadsworth. Peach could recognize the brown spots on his mushroom and that purple vest anywhere.

"PRINCESS!", Toadsworth screamed, "Sorry to bother you and what not, but we have a MAJOR predicament on our hands!", Peach knew that her loyal caretaker, Toadsworth was serious. Although he would sometimes over react about something, he never acted this bent out of shape before. He usually was calm but dull, but now he was acting all flustered, plus his British accent didn't make it much easier to understand him.

"Toadsworth, just calm down. Now then, what's the matter?", Peach asked tranquilly. The old Toad took a couple of deep breaths, and then spoke.

"Your right, quite right. Now then... BOWSER IS ATTACKING US AGAIN!!!", Toadsworth hysterically screamed, "AND IT'S NOT JUST THAT! HE'S CHARGING AT THE CASTLE WITH HIS WHOLE ARMY!! OH PRINCESS, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!"

"Toadsworth, calm down that's an order!", the princess commanded. "Bowser's attacking again?! Within twelve hours of his last attempt? Something must be up. Even Bowser isn't that thick. But if this is anything like last night, I'm sure Mario and Luigi could wipe the floor with Bowser one more time.", Peach turned to the two Italian plumbers. "Would you?", she asked Mario and Luigi looked at each other, and then at Peach. They nodded. "Great!", she said.

"Bowser and his troops have just penetrated the castle gates!", The voice of a random Toad rang out throughout the castle. Acting fast, Mario and Luigi ran up in front of Peach and spread their arms, using themselves as sort of a human wall of defense for her. There was no time to think up a proper strategy. At this rate, they would be here in seconds. As predicted, a few seconds later, the huge doors to the throne room came crashing down, and there stood the evil King Bowser and the nasty Kammy Koopa. Without saying a word, Bowser just charged full speed straight ahead, almost as if he was going to ram the Mario Bros., and Peach.

"Brace yourself Mario...", Luigi warned, "...Here...he...comes!" The Mario Bros. firmly stood their ground in front of Princess Peach, expecting Bowser's attack. But the two were shocked to see that the king did something they least expected. Just as Bowser was about to make it to the steps of the throne, he instead made a sharp turn to his right (Mario and Luigi's left in their perspective), and sprinted down a long dark hallway in that direction, completely ignoring the Mario Bros. and Peach. Not even so much as a word, or a passing glance. They were almost left speechless, until Toadsworth broke the silence.

"What was all THAT about? I can't believe that he just ignored you like that. It's... it's so unlike him. Your usually the only reason he even COMES here!" Toadsworth stated in confusion.

"If it's not me he's after, then there must be something else here that he wants. But, besides me, what else is here that he would possibly have any interest in?" Peach wondered. That's when it suddenly hit her. "Toadsworth... You don't think he's after...", she trailed off.

"THE HEART CRYSTAL!!", They both yelled at the same time. Mario and Luigi just stood there looking confused. They didn't know what a Heart Crystal was. Peach turned to Mario.

"Mario! Please, we need your help. Deep in this castle, we have been guarding a mystical gem called a Heart Crystal. A Heart Crystal is a very powerful thing, and if Bowser get's his claws on it, who knows what will happen?! The power he could release might be cataclysmic! He could be untouchable! Please help us!" Mario stared at Peach, then he smiled and gave her a piece sign. Relieved, Peach rapidly told Mario the location, and he hurried off down the hallway, hoping to stop his old foe in time.

By the time Mario got there, he realized that he was too late! As he looked around the room, Mario saw that Bowser had already taken down all the of defenses in the room, he already grabbed the Heart Crystal, and he was holding it in his hand. It was a medium sized, heart shaped crystal, just like the one back at the Koopa Kingdom, but this one was red instead of grey. Bowser hadn't noticed Mario in the room.

"Bwahahaha, now this makes two Heart Crystals!", He triumphetly shouted, "Now back to my kingdom, where I'll..." As Bowser turned around to leave, he saw that his mortal enemy, Mario, was standing in the doorway. "...YOU?!" Bowser shouted. He began to get frustrated. "I don't have time for this Mario. If you know what's good for you, you'll step aside, and let me pass." Mario said something demandingly to Bowser. "What? You expect me to hand you the Heart Crystal first?", Bowser repeated. Mario nodded. "Hmph, not likely!, you'll have to pry it from my cold..." Before Bowser could finish his sentence, Mario made his move. Quickly, he jumped high up into the air, and came down hard onto Bowser's head. (The Mario Bros. are famously known for their high jumps, and their effectiveness during battle.) Not giving Bowser any time at all to recover, Mario grabbed the Heart Crystal from Bowser while he was distracted by the shock and the pain. Furious now, Bowser screamed, "Give back that crystal, NOW!" Mario grew a serious look on his face and shook his head. Bowser growled. "Fine then", he grumbled "If you won't give it to me nicely, then I'll just have to take it from your charred remains!" At that instant, King Bowser breathed out a large, steady, and deadly stream of fire aimed right at Mario. Thinking fast, Mario back flipped to avoid the fire blast. Not wanting to fight in such an enclosed area, Mario simply held on to the Heart Crystal, and sprinted down the dark hallway. Bowser angrily ran after him yelling. "Wait! Get back here you coward! I'm not done with you yet!"

Mario did not listen to Bowser, although, he just kept clinging onto the Heart Crystal as he ran for dear life. This did not make Bowser give up. He just chased after Mario, breathing out blast after blast of fire. Faster and faster the fire blasts came, and closer and closer they got to Mario. He just kept ducking and running. At one point, the plumber would have sworn he saw his hair get slightly singed. Despite all these close calls, he still kept running, knowing that he had to get into a more open area. He finally made it to the end of the dark hallway, back into the throne room. This area was just large enough for him to take on Bowser without any trouble, he felt. He dodged one last fire blast, ducking and rolling, thus causing him to accidentally let go of the Heart Crystal, while the blast kept going, hitting some drapes in the room. Mario dashed, and picked the crystal back up. Bowser came barging into the room as mad as ever.

"Come Mario!", Bowser yelled, "Face me!" Not being one to displease, Mario finally decided to fight King Bowser head on. Keeping the crystal clutched tightly in his hand, Mario charged at Bowser. Bowser breathed a fire blast at Mario. He dodged it to the right and punched Bowser in the stomach. Bowser grabbed Mario and threw him across the room, slamming him into a wall. Mario recovered and charged Bowser again. When Bowser went to grab him, Mario dodged by jumping into the air, and stomped right on Bowser's head. Mario back flipped to avoid a swipe from Bowser's claws. Bowser then reached into his spiky shell, and pulled out a bunch of steel hammers. He began to repeatedly throw hammers at Mario. Mario reached into his overalls and pulled out a sledge hammer himself. With his hammer, Mario swung and hit back every hammer Bowser threw at him. (Kind of like baseball, but with hammers instead of balls). Bowser quickly dodged all the hammers, and charged at Mario, tackling him and pressing him against the wall. The force of the tackled made Mario let go of his hammer, causing it to fling across the room, leaving him weaponless. Mario freed himself from his press in the wall by giving Bowser a bunch of quick jabs in the face and the stomach. Not giving up, Bowser jumped high up into the air, and came down with a extremely strong force, trying to ground pound Mario. Thinking fast, Mario literally dove out of the way, barely missing Bowser's ground pound. Bowser breathed out another fire blast, but Mario dodged it, now landing behind the koopa king. Wanting to finish the fight, Mario grabbed on to Bowser's tail. Bowser tried to wriggle free, but he couldn't break Mario's grip. With all his might, Mario began to swing Bowser around and around. Faster and faster Mario spun Bowser. Higher and higher Bowser left the ground. Finally, Mario let go of Bowser, and he went air born. Screaming the whole time, Bowser flew across the room, and got smashed head first into the wall, just barely missing Princess Peach, whom was viewing the whole fight from her throne with Luigi and Toadsworth by her side. Mario laughed and cheered in victory.

Bowser almost seemed to be unconscious. When Mario believed that the fight was over, and turned his back on his foe to go pick up the sledge hammer he had dropped. Just as Mario was about to bend over and pick it up, he had heard a bone chilling scream. The scream was coming from the princess! Mario turned around to see King Bowser, looking all but unconscious, holding on to Princess Peach, with a claw to her neck. Toasworth and Luigi, who were next to Peach, didn't dare move. Toadsworth seemed paralyzed with fear, and Luigi didn't want to risk doing anything to put Peach in mortal danger. Slowly, angrily, and clearly, Bowser spoke.

"Okay Mario.", he started, " I have had just about enough of your little game. Now I'm only going to tell you this once. Either you give me back the Heart Crystal, or I'll personally make sure that Peach's scream will be the last thing you hear coming out of her mouth.", Bowser brought his claw a little closer to her neck.

"Don't do it Mario!", Peach shouted, "I don't care what happens to me, just make sure that Bowser doesn't get the Heart Crystal!" Mario didn't know what to do. He knew that Bowser was serious this time, if he was willing to threaten the life of the princess. Mario had to make sure not to make a wrong move, or he would regret it big time. At this point, Mario was under a lot of stress. He was also starting to get very angry. But, he was also feeling a bit more powerful. Actually, he felt A LOT more powerful. He looked down and saw that the Heart Crystal was dully glowing. Mario was confused at first, but then remembered that Peach said that the crystal was a very powerful gem. The Italian hero then realized that the type of power given depended on the user's feelings and emotions, in Mario's case, stress and anger. He must have been slowly using it's power throughout the whole fight! Mario thought he could use this to his advantage. Perhaps he could harness the mystic energy from the crystal to stop Bowser before he did anything extreme! So, with all his might, he tried to focus all his anger and stress into the crystal. The Heart Crystal glowed even brighter. He only had one shot! Taking a deep breath, he sprinted toward Bowser, ready to get the princess out of the way, and to attack Bowser. The koopa king saw this coming, and evilly grinned. He brought his claw even closer to Peach, getting ready to do the deed. But, before he could break the skin, Bowser saw something that made him stop. He saw something that made everyone in the room stop, even Mario.

The Heart Crystal in Mario's hand was glowing even brighter. It was actually growing too bright. Mario could feel the power of the crystal being released at an overwhelming rate for him. He couldn't control all that power anymore! The crystal just kept growing brighter and brighter, and the power released from it kept becoming more and more intense. It was all too overwhelming for Mario. Everyone in the room didn't know what to do about this. All they could do was stare in confusion, fright, and awe, as Mario; the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, got completely swallowed up by the bright light of the Heart Crystal.

The light grew so bright, it completely blinded Mario's vision. All he could see were bright white lights. He felt the ground from beneath him suddenly disappear. Mario felt as if he was floating in this bright light. This both confused and frightened him. He then felt something strange coming from the Heart Crystal. It seemed like it was moving in Mario's hand. It was almost like it was trying to escape him, but Mario held on tightly to it. The crystal began to drift anyway, and an alarmingly fast pace! Mario drifted along with the crystal, holding on for dear life, letting it guide him through the bright light. After some time, Mario felt the Heart Crystal beginning to slow down, and then come to a stop. He was very relieved to feel the ground return to the bottom of his feet. And with that, the bright light from the crystal grew fainter and fainter. Mario would soon have his full vision back. That was good, because Mario really wanted to get back to his battle between Bowser in Peach's castle. The last of the Crystal Heart's light faded, and Mario could now see his visual surroundings again. But, something was wrong. Where was Bowser? Where was Peach? Where was Luigi? Where were all the Toads? Where was the castle?! As Mario looked around, he was frightened to see someone who was anyone BUT Bowser, and he was shocked to discover that he was anywhere EXCEPT the Mushroom Kingdom!

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Okay, let's rewind a bit, about 10 minutes. We are now back on the planet Mobius, in Green Hill. Are attention is now on Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Ivo Robotnik. When we left them last, they were charging each other, and were about to be locked in combat. This story now continues. As they charged, Eggman made the first move. He swung his wrecking ball at Sonic. He ducked and rolled under the ball, barely dodging it. Sonic jumped into the air and hit the Egg Mobile hard. Eggman swung the wrecking ball again , this time, it hit Sonic hard. Sonic went flying towards the checkered stone outcrop, but before he could smash into it, Sonic kicked off of it with his feet, ricocheting off the outcrop, and curled into a spiky blue ball. He smashed himself into Eggman again, damaging his vehicle even more. Not giving up, Eggman swung the wrecking ball, yet again. Using his classic speed, Sonic easily dodged the ball, jumped up, and smashed into the Egg Mobile again. The battle was not looking good for Dr. Robotnik. If this kept up, he would loose for sure. Sonic jumped up to attack Eggman one more time to finish the fight. As a desperate attempt to buy himself some more time, Eggman tried to protect himself.

"Activating shields!", Eggman yelled. He pressed another button on his controls, and the entire Egg Mobile was covered in a thick, see-through force field. The hedgehog bounced off the force field as if it were a rubber ball, and fell on the ground, flat on his face. The tyrannical scientist couldn't help but laugh at Sonic for his feeble attack. This caused Sonic to get very ticked off. He was always quick to anger anyway. He decided to use the Chaos Emerald's power to break the shield. Sonic closed his eyes, and focused all of his thoughts, and all of his feelings into the emerald. It began to brightly glow. Sonic could feel the emerald's power swirling inside of him. Prepared to attack his evil foe, Sonic opened his eyes and grew a mischievous grin on his face. Dr. Eggman could see the power in Sonic's eyes, which actually frightened him a bit. He hardly felt safe, even behind his shields, because he knew from first hand experience that you should never tick Sonic off, ESPECIALLY if he has any Chaos Emeralds with him. Sonic jumped up and slammed into the shields. BAM! He slammed into the shields again. BAM! Sonic tried one more time. BAM! There was hardly a dent. This made Sonic more frustrated, which caused him to draw more power from his Chaos Emerald, making him even more powerful. With all his might, Sonic the Hedgehog leaped up above the Egg Mobile, curled up into his spiky blue ball, and repeatedly pounded down on Eggman's shields, with hardly any sign of stopping. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! From beneath the shields, a voice rang out to Dr. Eggman.

"_Father! The readings that I am getting from the enemy are off the chart! The attacks that Sonic is hitting us with are more forceful than any that I have previously recorded on his files! This presents a problem. How is it that his strength nearly doubled in a mere matter of weeks?!_" Robotnik just laid back in his seat.

"It's not him N.O.A.H., or at least not naturally. Sonic has increased his strength by harnessing the power of the emerald... as usual.", answered a nervous Dr. Robotnik, "I'm sad to say that if this keeps up, Sonic will...", He had no time to finish his sentence, for at that moment, he realized that Sonic had stopped his attacks. Eggman looked down to see the hedgehog on the ground, just standing there with that classic grin on his face. Just when he thought he was safe, Eggman heard a new sound entirely. CRACK! Dr. Eggman looked up to see that his shields had giant cracks, and they were getting bigger fast! Finally, the whole thing just shattered like broken glass. Robotnik shrieked in terror like a little girl. The broken pieces of the force field simply toppled on top of Eggman, leaving him defenseless, and wide open to an attack!

"You're finished Eggman!", Sonic yelled up at his enemy, "It's time to end this!" Dr. Eggman closed his eyes and flinched, waiting for the final blow, but for some reason, he didn't feel it. He opened his eyes to find that he was still unharmed. Robotnik looked below the Egg Mobile to see why Sonic held back. Apparently, Sonic didn't attack because he was too shocked to do so. Sonic was too busy staring in confusion at the red Chaos Emerald he held in his hand. It was beginning to glow even brighter, now. As a matter of fact, it was glowing too bright for him to see! Sonic could feel the power of the emerald pouring out of it, but he couldn't control the flow much longer. Brighter and brighter the emerald glowed, and less and less Sonic could see of Green Hill. Robotnik did absolutely nothing. He was just as surprised as Sonic was, but he thought that he had a good idea what was happening. He just sat back, and watched as his mortal enemy got entirely swallowed up by the Chaos Emerald's bright light.

At this point, Sonic the Hedgehog could no longer see Dr. Robotnik, or any of Mobius. He was just too blinded by the emerald's light to do anything at all. All he could see were these bright white lights that were all around him. Just when things couldn't get any weirder, without warning, Sonic suddenly felt the ground beneath his sneakers vanish! He felt as if he was aimlessly floating through nothingness. It didn't take long for the blue hedgehog to figure out what was going on. It has happened to him in the past before. He realized that somehow, he had been sucked into Chaos Control! Sonic could feel the Chaos Emerald violently shaking in his hand, as if it were trying to escape his grasp. Sonic then felt as if the Chaos Emerald was now in motion. He felt that it was rapidly drifting through the space time continuum, like a log caught in deadly rapids. Sonic was dragged along with the Chaos Emerald; he didn't dare let go. He had no idea where the emerald was taking him, but in his mind, he hoped it wasn't too far away. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Sonic, the Chaos Emerald began to slow down, and then gradually come to a stop. Then, much to Sonic's relief, he felt the ground return to him. The lights also began to fade too. Little by little, the bright lights that had blinded Sonic began to fade away. Then, much to Sonic's surprise, he began to hear voices all around, that were very unfamiliar to him.

"Look! The light is starting to die down!", One shouted.

"Is he okay?", Another asked.

"I think I see something in there!", One more declared.

"Is it him? Did he survive?", Another one concernedly asked. Sonic the Hedgehog had no idea what was going on. He couldn't help but think.

'Just what is going on? Who are these voices? Are they talking about me? Who do they think I am? Where on Mobius did the emerald take me? Where ever it is, I hope I'll be able to get back home!' Little did Sonic know at the time, that would be tougher than he thought. Finally, the last of the mystic lights died down. Sonic looked around to check his surroundings, hoping to see some sort of sight familiar to him. Unfortunately, Sonic seemed to have been transported farther than he had originally hoped, because he found himself to be in a place that he had never seen before. As a matter of fact, it looked nothing like the Green Hill Zone that he had left behind. He wasn't even outside anymore! As Sonic looked around, he found that he was in, what looked like, a very fancy room. Through further investigation, Sonic's best guess was that it was a throne room of some sort; due to the fancy furniture, and the giant, authentic looking chair in the front of the room. But this throne room, in Sonic's opinion, held some of the most peculiar looking people he had ever seen. Almost every single person in there had some sort of weird mushroom growing out of the top of their heads. They were also very short, in comparison to the hedgehog. Although, there were also some life forms, in that room, that differed from the mushroom-like people. In the back of the room, he saw an equally short, hag-like creature in purple robes staring at him threateningly, yet guiltily. There also seemed to be humans in this area too. In the front of the room, the hedgehog spotted a man garbed in green with blue overalls. He was much taller than the mushroom-like people in the room, he was probably even taller than Sonic. Then, there was one sight that concerned Sonic the Hedgehog most of all. Next to the tall green human, the blue hero saw a woman. This woman had long blond hair that went down her back, and wore a fancy pink dress, and a crown on her head. Sonic guessed that she was most likely the ruler of the place. What concerned Sonic was that, the way he saw it, she looked as if she was being held hostage! Much to the blue hedgehog's shock, the captor was what looked like a giant, demonic, mutated turtle, who had his arm wrapped around her, and his claw to her neck! The woman had a very frightened expression on her face. By now, Sonic didn't care where he was anymore, all he knew was that girl was in mortal danger, and if he wanted to help her, he would have to act fast! Frozen with fear from both her captor, and the appearance of the blue hedgehog, the girl dressed in pink was barely able to utter out a few words.

"...M...M...Mario?", she asked, "Is that you?" Next to her and the greenly dressed human, a mushroom-like person; one wearing a purple vest, and had brown spots on his mushroom, had blurted out.

"Well I say princess... if I wasn't mistaken... I'd say that the gem he has in his hand somehow** transformed** are dear Mario." The mushroom-like person with the thick British accent declared. Hearing this, the giant demonic turtle yelled out at Sonic.

"Grrrrrrr. MARIO!!! Don't think that you have any more of a chance defeating me with your new body!", the giant turtle yelled, "Your still the same pathetic weakling as you were before!" Sonic couldn't help but smirk. That mushroom-like person confirmed his suspicions of the girl being the ruler by referring to her as princess. Not only that, everybody here thought that he was a completely different person, which Sonic found to be humorous. Sonic chuckled a little.

"Hehe... So, a weakling am I?", Sonic talked to the giant turtle, "Well listen buddy, I don't know who you **think** I am, but I certainly know who **you** are."

"You...you do?", the turtle asked.

"Well sure I do!", Sonic said. He then spread out his arm, and pointed his finger at the captor. "You're just another villainous slime ball, whose about to get his butt kicked by yours truly." Sonic yelled. This amused the demonic turtle, as an evil grin spread across his face.

"This is your final warning Mario!", the captor instructed to Sonic "Give me that mystical gem, or else your dear Princess Peach will fall victim to my claw!" Sonic could tell by the tone of his voice that this guy wasn't joking around. He looked down at his hand. He couldn't be talking about the Chaos Emerald, could he? He did mistake Sonic for some guy named Mario after all, perhaps he mistook the emerald for something else too. But still, Sonic couldn't take any chances, especially with a princess's life on the line. Sonic looked up at the giant turtle, and shook his head. The turtle sadly sighed, then he brought his claw to the princess's neck to finish the job. Sonic had only one shot at this. So, gathering all his wits, Sonic the Hedgehog ran as fast as he could toward the giant turtle. Before the turtle could draw any blood from the princess, Sonic had already made his move. Before anyone knew what happened, Sonic had slid underneath the princess's captor. While underneath, he smacked out the giant turtle's legs, causing him to trip over backwards, with the princess along with him. Before they could even hit the ground, Sonic got back up, flipped in the air, landed hard on the turtle's head, grabbed the princess from his scaley grasp, and rushed her to the safest part of the room he could find, which was next to, who Sonic thought were, her guards.

Not a single sound was heard after that move. Practically everyone's jaws hung wide open. Never, in their entire lives, had **any** of them seen someone, or something, move that fast to save someone. None of them have ever seen someone move that fast, period! This blue hedgehog was so fast, the time frame of the whole rescue was about six seconds! To the bystanders, all they literally saw was a blue blur run to the thrown, and away from the throne. The mutated turtle sat up in a daze, still recovering from Sonic's quick attack. As he stood up, he realized that not only did he no longer have the princess, but she was now on the opposite side of the room. The hedgehog heard the turtle groggily yell out to the hag-like creature in the purple robes.

"Unngh...Kammy? What happened to me? It all happened too quick!", he yelled out to the little creature named Kammy.

"Umm... Bowser... your nastiness... it appears that **he** tripped you, and took the princess. Surprisingly, all in a matter of seconds!", Kammy explained nervously, while pointing at Sonic the Hedgehog, whom was close by the princess and her guards. Sonic glanced over at the demonic turtle.

'So, his name his Bowser huh?', Sonic thought to himself, 'Just what could he possibly want with the emerald?' Bowser began to get extremely flustered. His patience was long past tried. He was almost acting like a two year old with a temper tantrum. He began to scream out.

"GRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! CURSE YOU MARIO! YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME AGAIN!! YOU ALWAYS DO!!! I WON'T LET YOU!!!! NOT THIS TIME!!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!" Just like that, Bowser began to blindly charge at Sonic! The blue hedgehog sighed, because he knew from past experiences that blind rage was when a foe was most vulnerable.

"Tsk tsk tsk, I'm not going to tell you again , my name is not Mario!", Sonic yelled. In response to Bowser's rage, Sonic the hedgehog charged back at him, ready to take him down! Fortunately for Sonic, normally being faster than the speed of sound, he had the upper advantage. The blue blur slammed into Bowser, using the extra weight and force from the high speed to send the turtle hurtling across the room. Sonic did not give Bowser any time to recover, for as soon as he landed, the hedgehog curled up into a spiky ball and performed his infamous spin dash attack. The spin dash slammed into Bowser, almost knocking the wind out of him. Still in ball form, Sonic bounced of Bowser's hard shell, sending him toward a wall. The blue spiky ball ricocheted off the wall and slammed hard, right into Bowser's face. BAM! Sonic returned to hedgehog form. Keeping the giant turtle on his toes, Sonic decided to put his speed to good use. Bowser thought he finally saw his opportunity to attack, and slashed his claws in the direction he saw the hedgehog. But, to Bowser's surprise, when he swiped his claws, the hedgehog disappeared. It didn't take Bowser long to discover where the hedgehog was, for he felt a sharp pain in his side. Sonic had dodged and kicked Bowser in the ribs! Before the evil king could turn to attack him, Sonic had vanished again! A few milliseconds later, Bowser felt another sharp pain in his other side. Sonic had dodged again and punched Bowser in the other ribs. Before Bowser could even move, Sonic vanished again, and this time, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. Sonic had dodged once more and attacked Bowser's stomach. The Koopa king soon realized what was going on. Sonic was attacking him with punches and kicks, and then he was using his fast running to get out of the way, before Bowser had the chance to strike. It's not like he even could attack anyway. Sonic was moving so fast, Bowser couldn't even see him. All he saw was a blue blur. Sonic kept this pace up for quite a while. BAM! Dodge. BAM! Dodge. BAM! Dodge. BAM! Dodge. BAM! Bowser stood helpless, unable to attack. Pain was surging throughout his whole body, like a surgery without anesthetics. He knew he wouldn't be able to endure this battle much longer.

Now, to confuse his enemy, Sonic thought he would have a little fun. He stopped punching and kicking Bowser, and took things in a new direction. As fast as he physically could, Sonic the Hedgehog circled Bowser around and around, until he could not be physically seen. He ran until it seemed like Bowser was completely surrounded by a large blue ring of wind. Bowser felt like a rat that was cornered into a wall by a hungry cat. He was trapped! He was completely surrounded by one person, and had a slim to nil chance of running away unharmed. He felt as if he was caught in a mini blue tornado. For the first time in years, King Bowser was actually frightened. In a last resort chance to win the fight, Bowser desperately called out to his servant Kammy.

"Kammy... please! I need your help!", Bowser pleaded, " I... I can't do this! I can't attack him! He's just... he's just way too fast! At this rate... we'll surly lose the gem! Ohhhhh, please, Kammy, help me! He's not human!" Sonic overheard the evil turtle's pleases to his minion.

"That's right. I'm NOT human!" Sonic said seriously. He stopped circling Bowser, and jumped out a few yards away from him. He was getting ready to lay down the final blow on Bowser. "I'm a hedgehog!", he yelled out. And like that, Sonic charged at Bowser, prepared to finish the fight. Knowing his speed by now, Bowser knew he wouldn't be able to dodge in time, so he shielded his face, and whimpered. Kammy, hearing her master's cries for help before, knew that she had to aid her lord! So, without wasting any time, she reached into her robes, and pulled out her magic wand.

"Oh no you don't!", the elderly magikoopa yelled out at Sonic. She pointed her wand right at the hedgehog and shouted, "_Ademptio Festino_!"After shouting out theses magic words, three magic spinning lights shot out of Kammy's wand. These three magic lights took the shapes of a red triangle, a blue square, and a yellow circle. (Check the Mario games, ALL of the magikoopas' magic looks like this!) The three magic shapes rapidly spun around each other as they made their way to their target. Finally, the spell made it to it's victim, Sonic, and without warning, it hit him hard in the back! Sonic stumbled a little bit, but didn't even know he was hit. Then, much to Sonic's surprise, the spell Kammy had hit him with started to take affect. Just as Sonic was about to attack Bowser, something went terribly wrong. Sonic could feel his legs slowing down at an alarming rate. Try as he might, Sonic couldn't get his legs to move any faster, they were beginning to feel like cement. What was happening to him? His mach speed was gone in the snap of a finger! He felt him self losing control of his speed. He could also feel himself losing balance. You see, Sonic's physical structure could not adjust to moving from 80 m.p.h. to 8 m.p.h. that quickly, so, at this point, he could hardly even keep himself on his feet. Finally, his body could not handle to rapid speed change any more! He swerved to the right, then he swerved to the left, finally, he tripped over his own two feet, and fell face first at the feet of the evil King Bowser. When Sonic hit the floor, he banged his chin, knee, and shin hard, and was feeling a heavy mixture of confusion and physical pain.

"No...no, my speed..." Sonic weakly murmured, "What...happened to me? What did you do to me... you monster?... How did you...?", Sonic's questions were interrupted by Bowser's cackling laugh.

"All in good time, my spiky blue friend.", he answered sardonically to Sonic, not telling him it was actually his servant, Kammy, who had cursed him. "Now then", he continued, reaching for the Chaos Emerald in Sonic's hand, "I'll just take back what's mine and...", Bowser stopped. As he grabbed the gem, he realized that something was wrong with it. The red gem that Bowser now held in his hands was not heart shaped, like the red gem that he had held earlier. In fact, it was in the shape of a normal, brilliant cut jewel!

"Hey Kammy!", Bowser said confusedly, "Something's wrong with the Heart Crystal! What happened to it's shape?" Sonic heard Bowser refer to the Chaos Emerald as a Heart Crystal, and he weakly rose his head.

"Heart... Crystal?", Sonic murmured confused. Bowser angrily turned to the grounded hedgehog.

"Shut up weakling! I wasn't talking to you!", Bowser yelled at Sonic. To make sure he kept quite, Bowser kicked Sonic in the rib cage as hard as he could, causing Sonic to painfully grunt and violently cough.

"Sir, if I may, perhaps that isn't the Heart Crystal we were searching for. It is possible that the gem you now hold in your hand, is a completely different jewel, brought forth by that same strange light that engulfed Mario, and brought us this new flea bag!", Kammy had suggested, pointing at the Chaos Emerald, and then at Sonic. Bowser contemplated this for a moment or two, just staring at the emerald, and then he finally spoke.

"I think you're right.", the king said, "This jewel, that I now hold, I can feel the power it is expelling. This power, it feels different than the power the Heart Crystal back at my castle gave off. It also feels different than the power I felt from the crystal I had, before Mario took it.", He said, while looking at Sonic scornfully. "The power from this jewel, it feels more... chaotic! However, despite this difference, the power feels almost identical to the Heart Crystal! Hmm, perhaps it could be useful to me after all." Sonic couldn't take it much longer. He refused to let the emerald be taken by the likes of this creep! But he was still weak.

"No", Sonic weakly shouted, "Not the Chaos Emerald!" Bowser was losing his tolerance.

"I thought I told you to shut up!", Bowser yelled, giving Sonic another hard kick in the rib cage. He groaned and coughed some more, clutching the sides of his ribs, he could have sworn he tasted blood!

"Now then", Bowser continued, turning to Kammy, "I hate to say it, but we could not retrieve the Mushroom Kingdom's Heart Crystal. That thing could literally be anywhere by now. We did, however, retrieve this 'Chaos Emerald' thingy, which is almost the same thing. So I'd say that this mission was neither a success nor a failure. But I don't want to take any risks using this thing, along with my Heart Crystal, to cross worlds, so tell the troops to pan out! There are still five other Heart Crystals left to be found, and I want you guys to retrieve ALL of them! Search every kingdom in the Mushroom World if you have to! I don't want anybody trying to get in my way, or steal my idea!"Bowser demanded. Kammy obediently nodded and agreed. "Good, now I think we've done all we could do. There's nothing left here. Let's round up the remaining troops and move out!" Bowser ordered her. Kammy nodded again. She bent over to the ground and whispered into Sonic's ear.

"Have fun with my little curse blue boy!" She whispered playfully, much to Sonic's annoyance. Before they left, Bowser gave a love sick wave goodbye to the princess. The princess quickly responded with a scoff of disgust. Seeing this, the man in green stuck his tongue out at Bowser, but the giant turtle payed no mind. As Bowser strolled out of the room, he mockingly yelled back to Sonic, "Oh, and Mario, thank you so much for the 'emerald'!" He evilly laughed and exited the room. Sonic struggled to get up. He had to try to stop them!

"No... you fool... You have no idea... what kind of power... you're playing with!" Sonic struggled to say, but Bowser couldn't hear him, he was long gone already. He plopped back down on the floor. Please let all this be just a bad dream! Now how was he going to get home? Suddenly, Sonic saw a hand reach down to him, trying to help him up. This hand, Sonic could tell, was small, yet slender, and was daintily covered by a long, fancy, and delicate white glove. Sonic looked up to see that the person trying to help him up, was none other than the princess herself! Her long blond hair fell behind her back, revealing two large glassy blue eyes, and a small smile on her face.

Slowly, softly, and sweetly, the princess asked the weak Sonic the Hedgehog, "You're not Mario, are you?"

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For the time being, we must leave behind the weakened Sonic the Hedgehog. But just where exactly did the Chaos Emerald take Sonic? Why did that Bowser guy keep referring to him as Mario? And what about the spell that Kammy had cursed him with? We will check back up on him some other time. Right now, it's about time we focused on the REAL Mario, and what exactly happened to him after the Heart Crystal he had, engulfed him in that light.

When we left the mustached plumber, he was shocked to discover that the Heart Crystal he was protecting had somehow transported him to a completely different location than he was normally familiar with. Nope, the area that he was in now looked nothing like the princess's castle that the bright white light took him away from. In fact, he wasn't even in a building anymore, he was transported outside! The crystal had somehow taken him to someplace where the grass was emerald green, the sky was rich blue (with some scattered clouds), the water seen in the waterfalls and river seemed clean and clear, palm trees were scattered throughout the area, and all the stone that Mario could see was orange with a brown checkered pattern to it. This area was a very beautiful, but very strange.

Mario nervously looked around, hoping to catch some glimpse of anything or ANYONE that he found familiar to him. The Toads, Luigi, Peach, Toadsworth, or even Bowser! Anybody he could find! Sadly, there was no such luck. Desperate for some clue to where he was, he looked upward, only to find somebody who, in Mario's opinion, look almost as dangerous, if not more, as Bowser. This person looked like an old man, probably into his mid sixties. On top of his head, he was completely bald, except for, what looked like, a pair of metal goggles. In Mario's view, the man's stomach looked very 'round', yet his arms and legs were quite thin. The man's body almost looked like it took an egg shape. On the bridge of his nose, he wore a pair of small dark spectacles, which made it hard to see the man's eyes. What surprised Mario the most was the man's mustache. The mustache was incredibly long, and brown, reaching out beyond the old man's face, growing in a sort of zig-zag pattern. He must have been growing it his entire life, which made Mario's bushy black mustache look thin and pathetic in comparison! The old man was wearing a red tailcoat, with large, shiny yellow buttons, that seemed to gleam in the sun. He also seemed to wear a mischievous, little, smug, grin across his chubby face.

Much to Mario's surprise, the old man was sitting inside and controlling what looked like some sort of one seated hovercraft. What really concerned Mario was that, chained to the hovercraft, there seemed to be a large wreaking ball with the same brown and orange checker pattern as the stones that he saw in that strange place. The old man probably would have looked harmless to him, had it not been for the fact that Mario noticed the man was being followed by, what looked like, a small army of robots! With that type of transportation, and with that odd type of company with him, it did not take Mario long to realize that this man was most likely up to no good and making trouble. The old man had taken notice of Mario's presence, and stared down at him with an expressionless look. It was almost like the man was visually studying him, or as if he was looking for something important in Mario. The plumber did not take his eyes off the old man either. Just what was he up to? Finally, after about a minute or so of this studious staring contest, the old man's serious expression began to weaken into a held back smirk. Then, he just let himself go with a jolly, but eerily evil, laughter.

"OH, HOHOHOHOHO", the man chuckled, "Well what do you know N.O.A.H., it turns out my suspicions where correct!", he exclaimed! A low digitalized voice could be heard coming from the craft the old man was sitting in,

"_Suspicions? I did not hear you make any suspicions earlier. Please, what has happened to the form of Sonic?_", the voice asked confusedly. Mario found this a bit odd. Was the hover craft really speaking to this man? The old man laughed again.

"You of all things should know! After all, it was your theory!", the man answered the voice, and leaned a little closer to look at Mario some more. The man continued, "This person is obviously not that fool, Sonic! Oh not at all, his overall body characteristics are far too different for this person to be the same hedgehog that we all know and despise! It is now clear to me that we have just witnessed an unknowingly performed Chaos Control! Somehow, this poor shmuck must have gotten switched with Sonic! Although...",The man's voice began to trail off, for in Mario's fist, he had gotten sight of something red and shining. His voice began to pick back up, "... It looks like the Chaos Emerald has somehow found it's way back here to Green Hill." the man concluded. This only filled Mario with more confusion. Who was this old man? What's a Chaos Emerald, and why does this man think Mario has one? Exactly what was Chaos Control? Who was this 'Sonic' person that this man was talking about? Deeply needing answers, Mario got the man's attention, and impatiently started asking him questions. This bugged the man a bit.

"What? You dare ask me for my own name?", the old man angrily repeated. Mario nodded. That old smirk on the man's face quickly turned back into a serious face, "If you really must know, I am Dr. Robotnik, the world's GREATEST scientific genius! And soon to be the world's greatest ruler! But, I am more commonly referred to by the name, Dr. Eggman!", there was a slight pause, "What did you say your name was? Mario was it? Well Mario, I do believe you have something that should be rightfully mine!"Dr. Eggman said, pointing to Mario's closed fist. Eggman then warned the plumber with a heavy taunting tone in his voice, "If you give me that Chaos Emerald, I will let you leave this place unharmed. You have my promise!" Mario could tell by the doctor's tone of voice that he shouldn't trust him. Although Mario had no idea what a Chaos Emerald was, if this 'Robotnik' guy thought that the Heart Crystal was one of them, and he wanted to get his hands on it, Mario would have to stop him at all costs. After all, if what Princess Peach told him earlier was true, Mario would absolutely NOT let this guy harness all that mystical and cataclysmic power! So, Mario grew the most serious face that he could, and sternly shook his head, in refusal to Dr. Robotnik's offer. "Oh, deciding to take your chances with me, eh? Hmph, very well then, if you truly want me to, I'll take your life AS WELL as the Chaos Emerald!

Mario did not seem too frightened. It was only an old man in a hovercraft. Mario had fought worse things in the past before. How hard could this guy possibly be? Unfortunately, Mario had gotten just a tiny bit caught up in his confidence, because, without any second warnings, Dr. Robotnik attacked him! Robotnik rapidly swung his wreaking ball straight at Mario. Mario had just saw it coming, and he narrowly dove out of the way, hitting the ground. That ball was moving a lot faster than Mario expected, or was used to fighting, he knew he couldn't dodge it forever, he needed to make an attack. Mario tried to get back onto his feet, but when he was on his knees, he looked behind him and saw that the wreaking ball was coming at him again, but this time even faster. The ball was hardly 13 inches from Mario' skull when he dove foward, ducking to the ground like a scared child. Mario knew that he barley dodged that one, because he could feel that the heavy ball had slightly scraped his backside! As Mario hugged the ground, he could hear Dr. Eggman's laughter of amusement from above. This highly irritated the Italian hero, but he had to admit that he wasn't putting up that good of a fight. But that darn wreaking ball was just too hard for him to avoid! Deep down, he had almost regretted challenging the doctor. But he knew that he HAD to make an attack. Mario quickly scrambled to his feet to fight back. Unfortunately, when he got up, Mario had not noticed that Eggman had swung the wreaking ball again! By the time he noticed, he couldn't do anything about it. He was too shocked with fear to move at all, and even if he could move, it was too close, and moving to fast, for him to jump out of the way. Mario gave out a loud yell of pain and shock as the wreaking ball struck him square in the side of the head. With the equivalent of being punched in the skull by two brick boxing gloves, Mario flew backwards for quite a few yards, before landing hard on the grass. For a long time, Mario did not open his eyes, nor did he move from his spot. Eggman was sure that Mario was clear out cold. Giddy with excitement, Dr. Robotnik pressed a small green button in his hover craft. The wreaking ball slowly raised itself back inside the vehicle, and in it's place, a long, silver metal claw shot out of the place the ball once hung. Lightning quick, the claw made it's way to Mario's fist, and was able to obtain the Heart Crystal without too much difficulty! The claw then dropped the gem into Dr. Eggman's hand, and then winded itself back into the Egg Mobile. For while, Dr. Eggman just sat there staring at the Heart Crystal. A slight mixture of confusion and frustration swirled around inside of him.

"Huh? What is the meaning of this?! Is this some kind of joke?! This can not be a Chaos Emeralds! We've been tricked!", Eggman angrily shouted! After a brief moment, N.O.A.H. quickly replied.

"_Father, I just did a scan on the jewel that you have in your hand. You are correct, this is NOT a Chaos Emerald! However, my scans could not bring up any records of any mystical heart-shaped gems,_ _such as this, ever being discovered on this planet. If I am not mistaken, what is more strange is that my scans also show that the power being released from_ _this gem is almost identical, if not the exact same, as a Chaos Emerald! I believe that it would be wise to hold on to it for a while. It may come in handy for the mission, if you know what I mean._", Eggman took his eyes off the crystal, and sighed.

"I suppose you're right.", he said, "But still... I don't think it would be wise to risk mixing together two different sources of power, especially if one of those types of power is currently unknown to Mobius! The results could be anything! I'll take you're advise and hold on to it for now, but I would still feel more comfortable if we could get more Chaos Emeralds. Yes, we must continue our search for the emeralds immediately, before anyone has a chance to take any more of them!", Dr. Robotnik declared.

"_Very well father, I'll send a message to your remaining able-bodied robots_ _in New Megaopolis to spread out and search for the rest of them._", N.O.A.H. said. There was a bit of a pause, "_What should we do about HIM?_", he asked about Mario, who still remained motionless on the ground a few yards away from them.

"Oh, just leave him there!", answered Dr. Eggman, "If you ask me, the guy got what he deserved by thinking he could defeat me, HA! Well, anyway, I think that we have done just about enough here. C'mon N.O.A.H., let's search the rest of Green Hill. There's bound to be another emerald somewhere." Without any second thought, Dr. Eggman turned the Egg Mobile around, and headed off in another direction. The robots that were with him split up and scattered across Green Hill, in hopes to find a second Chaos Emerald for their master. Within a minute they were all out of sight, leaving the seemingly unconscious Mario all alone.

Although, what Dr. Robotnik didn't know, was that Mario wasn't out cold at all. He was still conscious, but just barely! He could hear and feel everything going on around him, but that blow to the head left him pretty weak. Desperately clinging on to consciousness, he couldn't even open his eyes or sit up. Mario could feel his energy slowly ebbing away from him. He began to feel frightened again. What was going to happen to him? Was someone going to find him? Would he recover? Was he going to...die? Mario could feel himself losing consciousness. Everything that he felt was beginning to numb away. His hearing was slowly starting to die down too. Although, just when he thought that his game was about to be over, he lightly heard something off in the distance. He could hear footsteps in the grass rapidly approaching him. Was somebody coming to his aid? He heard the footsteps come to a halt next to him. What was this person going to do to him? Gently and slowly, Mario could feel somebody raising up his arm from the ground. He then felt somebody gingerly place two fingers onto Mario's wrist. After a moment, Mario heard this person make a gasping noise. That couldn't be good! Mario felt the mysterious person quickly drop his arm back onto the ground, and then he felt this person place his same two fingers on the top of his neck. Mario was getting much weaker; he could hardly make out the sound of somebody letting out a sigh of relief. Mario couldn't stay awake much longer. He probably only had enough energy to last him a few more seconds. Before that last bit of the darkness overcame him, before he completely lost all of his energy and passed out unconscious, he heard a voice. By the sound of it, the voice probably belonged to somebody that was very young.

The last thing that Mario heard was, "Phew, this person is still alive... but just barely! This is not good! His pulse is slow and his breath is thinning! It looks like he's unconscious! He won't be able to survive very long out here! There is no time to loose! I have to help him! I have to get him back to my workshop immediately!"...Darkness.

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**Things are looking grim for our two heroes. One has been cursed and humiliated. The other is unconscious and clinging to life. Both are trapped in unfamiliar dimensions, and let two powerful gems fall into the hands of desperate villains. As this chapter comes to a close, many questions still seem to linger around. Why did the two gems react in a way that caused Mario and Sonic to cross dimensions? What kind of curse did Kammy cast on Sonic the Hedgehog that caused him to loose control of his speed, and would he be able to reverse it? Who was the mysterious person that came to Mario's aid when he was clinging to consciousness? Will either of the two heroes EVER find a way to get back home? Come back and read more next time with chapter 3! Once again, I want to apologize for the massive length of this chapter! I am also sorry it took so long to finish. I originally wanted this chapter done by last month! But like I said before, detail takes time to explain! Originally, this chapter was going to be even longer, but when I realized how long it was turning out, I split it up into two chapters! I promise chapter 3 won't be nearly as long! Although, I don't have much of a clue of when it will be out by. Thank you all for reading. Please leave honest reviews. Tell me what you think of the story so far. There is still more to come! See ya!**


	3. Brand New World, Same Old Problem

**Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos!**

Author's Notes: I do not claim ownership over any characters or objects mentioned in this story! The only things that I claim ownership over are N.O.A.H. and the Heart Crystals. Any other characters or items mentioned in this story are either owned by Nintendo or SEGA, and this story is for entertainment only. Okay, now that's done. Hello readers, I'm back, and I have another chapter with me! Sorry it took a while, writer's block can really be annoying sometimes! But I've been working hard trying to get this chapter just right, but I should warn you that this one is mostly a dialog chapter, and has almost no action. However, I really hope you enjoy it. So now, I present to you, Chapter 3!

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**Chapter 3: Brand New World, Same Old Problem.**

As we progress with our story, we shall continue it in the Mushroom World. The time is about 9:00 a.m., while the location is at the Mushroom Kingdom, specifically inside Princess Peach's castle. The Princess's throne room is where our setting takes place, for it is here that we find the former hero of Mobius, Sonic the Hedgehog.

The young hedgehog sat lowly on the steps of Peach's throne, while a couple of mushroom-headed people were trying to attend to the wounds that he had received about fifteen minutes prior. During the time that he was being treated, Sonic never said a word. He never gave anybody any eye contact either. The whole time, he just stared sadly to the floor at his feet, except for a few times when one of the mushroom-headed people told him to lift his head so he could examen Sonic's chin. Of course, this medical treatment didn't matter to Sonic, he didn't care about any of this at all. He had experienced much worse pain in the past before. A banged up chin, a hit knee, a few sore ribs, a hurt shin, these were nothing to Sonic. The things that Sonic really wanted these people to check out were his feet.

So many unanswered questions were still swirling around the hedgehog's head. Where exactly was he? How was it that only one Chaos Emerald granted him to travel so much distance? Who exactly was that 'Bowser' person, and why did he keep referring to Sonic as 'Mario' and the Chaos Emerald as a 'Heart Crystal'? What exactly were Heart Crystals, and why did that evil turtle seem so determined to find them? But the most important questions, to Sonic, kept reoccurring in his head over and over. His trademark speed was gone! Why, oh why, was his speed taken away from him? Was it somehow that short, purple robed, hag-like creature that was able to render him powerless? If it was, he would make her pay dearly!

This was really bad, without his barrier breaking speeds, he was now just a normal hedgehog! Sonic needed his high speeds to perform some of his most affective attacks. Without his speed, Sonic could no longer perform the Spin Dash. It would now be impossible for him to pull off the Super Peel Out. Chances were that he wouldn't be able to flip as often when he jumped, and if he couldn't flip that well, he might as well of said goodbye to the Bound Jump. There would be absolutely no way he could do any more Blue Tornado or Sonic Wind attacks, and it was very clear to him that the Light Speed Dash and the Homing Attack were now also out of the question. Worst of all, he could no longer travel such lengthy distances anymore. If something was wrong, it might take Sonic hours just to get to the area of the trouble, and by then it could be too late! Not only that, his only chance of finding a way back home was snatched up by that no-good cheating Bowser! Bruised, beaten, emerald less, speed less, and powerless, Sonic the Hedgehog felt pretty much defeated on that lonely stoop. Then suddenly, a soft voice broke Sonic out of his train of thought.

"Are you okay?", the voice asked with a strong tone of concern. Sonic looked up with a jerk, and saw the Princess staring back at him. Sonic could tell the Princess was referring to his fall from earlier.

"I've been hurt worse before.", Sonic answered, "It's nothing." The Princess let out a sigh.

"Good.", she said. And without saying anything, she sat down on the stoop next to Sonic, on his right side. This surprised Sonic a tiny bit. Shouldn't the Princess be sitting on the throne behind them? Sonic turned around and could tell that the Princesses's two companions, the tall green clothed human and the old brown spotted mushroom-head, were thinking the same thing. A few seconds of silence passed by. The two mushroom-headed people finished their examination. No bandages or special medical treatment was required. As the two people exited the room, Sonic couldn't stop himself from staring at them. What were they? The Princess spoke, "They're Toads.", Sonic turned her head towards her, looking confused. "Those mushroom-headed creatures, they're known as Toads. I caught you staring at them." Hearing this, Sonic smirked and blushed, being embarrassed for being caught staring at them. The Princess continued, "You know, you never answered my question. You're not Mario, are you?" Sonic looked at her for a few brief seconds, and then he slowly answered her.

"No... I'm not.", Sonic said. The Princess nodded with acceptance.

"I thought as much.", she said She lifted herself off the steps and looked down at Sonic. "And during your fight with Bowser, you mentioned that you were, in fact, a hedgehog." She reached out for Sonic's hand. "Is that really true?", The Princess asked. Sonic looked at the Princess, and then her thin delicate hand. After thinking about it, he was beginning to feel like his old self. He let out his classic grin, reached out, and grasped the Princess's hand.

"Definitely!", he answered, and he let the Princess help him stand up from the steps. As Sonic the Hedgehog stood there, the Princess began to encircle him. Each step she took, her eyes scanned up and down Sonic's body. It was as if she was studying every inch of him. After a few seconds, it began to make Sonic feel uncomfortable. Finally, after this awkward examination, the Princess finally spoke.

"Sir, please forgive me if I sound a bit rude, but, if what you say is true, then you are one of the most... unusual looking hedgehogs I've ever seen. I mean, you have the body structure of a humanoid, you stand on two legs, you wear gloves on your hands and sneakers on your feet, your spikes look a bit more... stylish than that of an average hedgehog, you can talk, you can fight, and you move at record breaking speeds. Not to mention the fact that you are also a **blue** hedgehog!" Surly, this should have made Sonic a bit taken back, but surprisingly, he didn't seem offended at all! The blue hedgehog just chuckled.

"Hehe, yeah, I might seem unusual to **you**, but where I'm from, I'm actually considered quite normal.", Sonic replied to the Princess. The Princess just seemed more amazed, and more interested in Sonic by the minute.

"You know, I never did thank you for saving me from Bowser's grasp.", The Princess said with a toying tone in her voice. "Does my brave rescuer have a name?" Sonic kept his eyes on her.

"Yeah, I have a name.", he said, "I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog!" The Princess giggled.

"A unique name for a unique character, I like it!", she went on, "But, why do they call you that?" she asked. Sonic had a feeling she would ask that.

"They call me Sonic 'cause I am faster than sound. I keep 'em jumping around!", He answered her. Peach just gazed at the hedgehog.

"Blue hedgehog...Sonic.", she stated. Sonic nodded.

"With incredible speeds, I'm moving my feet!" he added. He paused, looked down at the floor, and his ears drooped. "... Or at least I used to." Sonic sadly stated. The Princess could sense his turmoil, and tried to change the subject.

"I am Princess Peach Toadstool, ruler of this land, known as the Mushroom Kingdom.", said the Princess. (A lot of people think that Toadstool is Peach's last name.) Sonic raised his head.

"The Mushroom Kingdom, huh? So that's where I am? Sorry, but I'm afraid that I have never heard of this place before.", Sonic said. Peach was baffled by this! Everybody knows about the Mushroom Kingdom! She had to get to the bottom of this!

"So then, if you're not from around here, where exactly **are** you from?", Peach asked Sonic. Sonic stared at her. It would be wise to let her in on the situation that's at hand, especially since Bowser now had one of the Chaos Emeralds.

"You really want to know?", Sonic asked Peach., "Fine, sit down then, because I'm about to tell you the full story." So, Peach seated herself at her throne, and he told her, the man in green, and the old, brown-spotted Toad, everything. He told them about his home planet, Mobius, and how he used to protect it countless times from dangerous foes. He told them about how he used to be able to break the sound barrier with just his sneakers. He told them about all his adventures with his best friend, and all the good times they had. He told them about the notorious Dr. Robotnik, and his numerous attempts at world conquest, and how he used to always put Eggman back in his place. He told them about the seven Chaos Emeralds, and what exactly their power is capable of doing. He told them about his little run-in with Dr. Eggman at Green Hill, and their battle for the red Chaos Emerald. It was around here that he wrapped up his long background story. "... and before I could finish the doctor off, the Chaos Emerald began to act violently and glow brightly. For some reason, it wouldn't let me attack! The emerald ended up completely swallowing me into some strange, bright light. When the light finally faded, the next thing I knew, I'm in an alternate dimension, staring down the face of a giant evil turtle and a hostage princess. And then, I think you all know what happened next...", Sonic concluded.

"Yeah.", the man in green sadly answered., "Kammy Koopa took your speed away from you, and Bowser stole your Chaos Emerald." Sonic placed his eyes on the human.

"Bingo.", Sonic replied. It didn't take very long for any of the three to notice something very suspicious about Sonic's story.

"Well isn't that odd.", the brown-spotted Toad said, "If I am not mistaken, didn't something **quite** similar to that happen to our old chap, Mario, before he disappeared?" the old Toad asked.

"Hmmm... That **is** pretty weird.", Peach murmured. At this point, Sonic the Hedgehog was very confused, and beginning to loose his patience with these people.

"Okay, ever since I got here, all you people have seemed to talk about is this 'Mario' dude! I want to know **right now**, who is he, why does everyone think I'm him, and why the heck is he so special? It's getting on my nerves!" Sonic blurted out in frustration. The old Toad looked at Peach.

"I think we should tell him... Tell him about everything." The old Toad suggested quietly. The Princess looked at him with a solemn look on her face.

"Oh Toadsworth, I think you might be right.", the Princess agreed, "Since Bowser is now after the Heart Crystals, and has a... 'Chaos Emerald'. And with Mario now missing, Sonic the Hedgehog seems like our safest bet on helping us out... of course, aside from Luigi, that is." Peach added, turning her head towards the man garbed in green, looking embarrassed that she almost forgot about him. The man gave her an annoyed looked, and then blew it off. Sonic looked at the Princess's two companions. The old, brown-spotted Toad must have been Toadsworth, and the human dressed in green had to be Luigi! The Princess cleared out her voice.

So, in exchange for being told Sonic the Hedgehog's situation, the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom filled Sonic in on everything she felt he needed to know. She told Sonic about how her bloodline had ruled over the Mushroom Kingdom ever since it's construction. She told the hedgehog about how the evil Bowser was the king of a rivaling kingdom, known as the Koopa Kingdom, and about how the king had made countless attempts to kidnap her, and make her his own. She told him all about the infamous Super Mario Bros., namely Mario, and how he and his brother, Luigi, would always be able to thwart Bowser's plans of world domination, and find a way to rescue her in the end. She told him about Bowser's latest, and lamest, kidnap attempt that had taken place the night before, and how, he returned the next day, just recently, with an army of his troops. She also told Sonic about how the kingdom was guarding a very powerful jewel known as a Heart Crystal at the time, and how they were able to find out that Bowser was attacking the castle again so he could try to take it away from them, instead of taking her. She told him about Mario's valiant attempt to stop Bowser from possessing all that cataclysmic power, and the heated battle he went through to defeat the king. Peach told Sonic about how Bowser held her hostage in a last ditch attempt to get the Heart Crystal away from Mario, and the events that were to come from it.

"... So then, when things seemed grim, Mario tried to harness the power of my Heart Crystal to gain strength, and then he charged at Bowser to try and save me. Unfortunately, before Mario could do anything, the Heart Crystal began to over-react to the point where he couldn't control it's power anymore. A large, white, bright light emerged from the crystal, which completely engulfed him. After a minute or two, the bright light finally subsided. Although, we were dismally surprised to find that our dearest Mario was gone, and the heart Crystal had vanished. Instead, in the exact spot that Mario and the Heart Crystal once stood, there was you and that... Chaos Emerald!" Peach concluded, addressing Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic had to let this all sink in for a moment.

"Well Princess", Sonic started, "I must admit that is way past odd. This 'Mario' character and I both trying to do, pretty much, the same things, then both of us vanishing in a strange, white, bright light, at roughly the same time.", At that moment, a strange thought had just popped into Sonic's head, "You know what I think? I tried to protect a Chaos Emerald from my enemy, Dr. Eggman, I got swallowed by a light, and then the Chaos Emerald and I ended up in this new dimension, the Mushroom World. Your friend, Mario, tried to protect that... 'Heart Crystal' from his enemy, King Bowser, **he** got swallowed by a light, and then he and that 'Heart Crystal' ended up going completely missing! Call me crazy, but if I was able to cross worlds with my emerald, then maybe he was able to do the same with your crystal. I think that your friend might be more missing than you think. I think that... while I'm stranded here in the Mushroom World, he might be, in fact, stuck on my home world, Mobius!", At this odd theory, the entire room was filling up with panicking gasps and calamity. Sonic continued, "However, your highness, I'm afraid that I just don't see much of an explanation as to how **that** could have happened. You see, although those Chaos Emeralds are capable of traveling through great distances, there is almost **no way** to travel to an alternate dimension with just **one **emerald! To rip a seam that big, you would need two or more Chaos Emeralds... indeed that is a mystery.", just then, Sonic had another thought, "Wait a minute, what about the Heart Crystal? After Bowser snatched my Chaos Emerald from me, he said something about it's power feeling identical to that of the Heart Crystal's power. Could this possibly be true?", Sonic addressed the Princess, "Could a Heart Crystal really be **that** valuable? I mean, I know that you told us that this 'Heart Crystal' thingy was a very important item, but you didn't exactly tell us why. Just what exactly makes these 'Heart Crystals' so special?" Hearing all of this, Luigi turned his head toward Peach.

"Come to think of it Princess...", Luigi started, "... you didn't really explain that to Mario either. You just sent him off to protect something that he didn't even know **existed** an hour ago!", Now, Luigi started to get a bit worked up. He was almost upset to the verge of angry tears! "It cost me my one and only big brother Peach! Was it really worth it? WAS IT?! How come none of us ever heard of the Heart Crystals before? Why are you making it such a big secret? What makes them **that** dangerous? Just what exactly are you hiding from us?! Why is it..."

"DUDE! Calm yourself!", Sonic the Hedgehog scolded Luigi, interrupting his rant.

"No Sonic.", Princess Peach sadly sighed, slumping lower on her throne, "Luigi has every right to be upset. It **was** his older brother after all, and if it wasn't for my negligence, chances are that none of you would have been dragged into this mess in the first place.", the Princess sighed again, "I was really hoping that I could have avoided this... but since there is no more hiding the truth of the Heart Crystals' existence, I will tell you everything I know.", The Princess sat up, blinked, took a deep breath, and told them everything she knew.

"Heart Crystals... they are precious stones that hold unimaginable power. Many years ago, before any of us even existed, these were once the Mushroom World's absolute source of unlimited power. They held the ability to turn a person's thoughts into power. In those times, their power could have been used by anybody, in anyway they pleased. It remained peaceful, because only the most trustworthy nations were allowed to use them, and their power was distributed evenly. However, their usefulness depended on the user itself. They could have been used to summon incredible strength and unlock unlimited power, or, they could have been used to travel great distances, whether it be to another part of the planet, or to a world that was completely different to that of our own. Yes, dimensional travel was one of the most common use of the Heart Crystals. It was because of this, that the Mushroom World began forming alliances and rivalries with other worlds. If used properly, this power was most useful for multidimensional trading and for alternate economical advise. Of course, like all sources of power, the Heart Crystals can be abused, and at one point, they were.

There are only seven in existence, and they are extremely valuable. If somebody were to collect all of the Heart Crystals, they were practically invincible, and almost God-like! Although, if exposed to another source of mystic energy that is equal to, or greater than, that of the Heart Crystals, they can become **extremely** unstable, and can be very dangerous to be around. You see, during this time, we had a strong alliance with one of our neighboring dimensions, one that was completely unlike ours! Since our alliance was so strong, we were constantly using the Heart Crystals' power to tear a hole in space/time, and travel to and from that dimension. According to legend, that dimension also had a source of power that was very similar to ours. Whether or not this is true, I can not say, but if it **was** true, then supposedly, the frequent bonding and separation from this alternate mystic power began to affect the seven crystals over time. Not having time to properly adapt to the other power's presence became too much to bare. The rulers of both worlds grew aware of this eventually, but were too ignorant, and too wound by their ultimate power, to accept it as a problem. In due time, although, the Heart Crystals, and their constant attraction and repelling towards the other dimension, and the other mystic power, finally reached their breaking point! Centuries ago, on a warm Autumn dawn, while the void to the two worlds was open, the Heart Crystals finally snapped out of control, and unleashed the ultimate cataclysm, along with absolute chaos, onto both of our worlds!"

"What happened to the two worlds Princess?", A newly concerned Sonic asked.

"We... we do not speak of it... at least not anymore." answered a solemnly quiet Peach. Out of the corner of his eye, Luigi could of sworn he saw a single small tear quietly roll down Princess Peach's cheek.

"Anyway...", Peach continued, "After a very long struggle, both worlds were finally able to bring their energy forms down to a semi-stable level, and seal up the void between the two worlds. After all of the chaos subsided, the political rulers of all of the nations in the Mushroom World came together to discuss the problem. They soon concluded that the over-abuse of the Heart Crystals was one of the main problems of their tragedy. Then, after much debate, it was decided that the seven Heart Crystals were much to dangerous and unstable to ever be together again. They separated the crystals, and gave one crystal each to seven of the most trustworthy kingdoms in all of the Mushroom World. At the time, we were given the privilege of guarding one of the Heart Crystals, and it had been resting here safely for centuries, that is until today, when that ruthless king, Bowser, tried to steal it, with semi-failing results." Peach concluded her speech. Not a word more was spoken. An emotional silence flooded over the throne room.

"So... so that's it? That's all? I... I... I don't believe this!" Sonic managed to spurt out. And with that, the blue hedgehog kneeled to the ground, sunk his head, and shut his eyes in remorse. A voice broke out.

"Forget all this nonsense! We don't have time for all of this Heart Crystal hoo-haw! We **need** to focus on a rescue mission for our old chap, Mario! Keep in mind he is **still** missing!", Toadsworth blurted. As a bunch of discussion began to fill the room over the matter, each word was being ignored by Sonic, for hundreds of thoughts were swarming in and out of Sonic's mind as they spoke.

'It's over, I lost everything. I'm finished! I'll never be able to run like I used to anymore. Never again! I lost my only Chaos Emerald. That was my one ticket home, and I lost it! I'm stranded here in the Mushroom World! I have to get home to Mobius! What am I going to do? Hmmm... Heart Crystals... Chaos Emeralds. Seven Chaos Emeralds... seven Heart Crystals. One Emerald stolen... one Heart Crystal... missing. Remaining Heart Crystals scattered... across... Mushroom World. Bowser... after **all** remaining Heart Crystals. Those Heart Crystals... so much... like Chaos Emeralds. Chaos Control... void... Mushroom World... missing Mario... stranded... Mobius. Hey, wait a minute!'Sonic's eyes sprung wide open, "THAT'S IT!", Sonic shouted loudly enough to silence all of the talking in the room. Sonic got back onto his feet, with a new spark of hope in his eyes. Every one in the room grew silent and stared at the blue hedgehog as if he was crazy.

"Uhhh... what's it?", Luigi unsurely asked Sonic.

"The answer to **both** of our problems! It's been staring us in the face this whole time!", Sonic answered. Everyone grew interested in hearing about Sonic's idea. The hedgehog continued, "Remember what I told you guys about the Chaos Emeralds from my world? Even though they can be used to unlock unlimited power, they can also be used to travel distances, and even cross worlds. That is known as 'Chaos Control'. When Bowser snatched my only Chaos Emerald, he said that it's power felt almost **identical **to the power of the Heart Crystals of this world. Bowser also said that he wanted to round up the remaining Heart Crystals of this world, so nobody could stop him, which would grant him cataclysmic power! Not only that, this... 'Mario'... guy that you people keep talking about has disappeared! Not to mention the fact that I'm stranded in this world without my speed. Peach, if what you said about the seven Heart Crystals, and the conditions of Mario's disappearance, is true, then that must mean those crystal are still active!", Sonic now began to pace the room, " Don't you get it? If somebody went across the Mushroom World to collect the remaining Heart Crystals, then used Chaos Control to temporally open a portal to my world, Mobius, we can prevent Bowser from getting his filthy claws on the crystals, we can take back the Chaos Emerald, and I can get back home! Also, if my theory of your friend being stuck on Mobius is true, we can bring him back once we used Chaos Control! Everyone wins... except Bowser, of course." Everyone thought it over for a few seconds.

"Absolutely not!", an angry Toadsworth shouted, " The seven Heart Crystals were separated for a **reason** master Sonic! Their power might still be too unstable! We can not risk what happened all of those centuries ago! It's just too dangerous!"

"I say we do it.", Princess Peach answered silently. Toadsworth looked at her in a flabbergasted way. "It seems like the most logical way clean up this horrible mess. Besides, the crystals have been separated for centuries now, it should be safe to use them by now."

"The question is who is going to collect them all?", asked Sonic the Hedgehog, rubbing his chin.

"I just hope the other kingdoms will be willing to give up their Heart Crystals for this cause, probably not. To be honest, I don't think they will give them up without a fight. This mission might be very dangerous, maybe even deadly. Whoever is going to collect the remaining Heart Crystals **must** have experience doing dangerous stuff like this. But who?" After a second or two, everyone turned their heads towards Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic's eyes widened .

"Hey, don't look at me!", Sonic shouted. The princess pleaded.

"Sonic, please! We've heard of your stories, and what you have done in the past. Plus, we saw how well you fought Bowser earlier. Your moves were spectacular, and you did it as if it were nothing! You seem the most capable of pulling this off, and besides, this mission sounds right up your alley!"

"Don't get me wrong Princess, normally I would of loved to help you guys out! It's just that I'm kinda at a disadvantage, with my trademark speed gone and all. I can't do most of the attacks that I used to anymore. Not only that, I've never been to this world before. I don't know my way around it, how to get to anywhere, and I could get lost easily. With those two handicaps, I'm pretty much useless in this area!", Sonic argued. Princess thought deeply about this for a few moments, then looked around the room. To her right, she spotted Toadsworth and Luigi. She focused on Luigi. Mario and Luigi, as brothers, were once a great team, fighting off the Koopa Kingdom numerous times. The Princess had an idea.

"Hey Sonic, take Luigi with you!", Peach suggested. Both Sonic and Luigi looked at her, and then at each other, in shock. The Princess further explained. "Luigi has helped save the Mushroom Kingdom and this entire world with his brother many times, for years, and neither he, nor his brother, can run faster than the speed of sound! Also, with the fact that he has been all over the world, he knows this planet better than any of us in the room. He can get you from place to place, help you collect the Hear Crystals, and show you how to kick some butt without supersonic speed! What do you say Luigi, are you up for it?" Luigi quietly stood there, thinking it over for a few minutes. Finally he had an answer.

"For years, I have been overshadowed by my older brother. He always got the majority of the credit for **our** work. Now I've been given the opportunity to prove my worth to this kingdom. Yes Princess, I will help Sonic on his journey to retrieved the Heart Crystals, and save my brother. That is of course...", Luigi walked over to Sonic, faced him, and stuck out his hand, "... if **you're** up for it!" Sonic stared at Luigi's hand, then at Luigi's face. A grin came across his face.

"Well if you're up for it, then I guess I am too! Yeah, let's do this!", Sonic exclaimed. He grabbed Luigi's hand and shook it with enthusiasm. The sound of talking cheers were heard throughout the throne room, at the sight of this new alliance!

"It's settled then!", the Princess said, clapping her hands together. "Oh wait, Luigi!", Peach exclaimed. Luigi turned back to the Princess. "Before you two go, please, take this!", Peach reached into her breast pocket, and pulled out what looked like a book. It was a tiny book, that looked like it could easily fit in your pocket. It looked worn out from the ages, and had a worn, dark green, cover. Luigi slowly walked up to Peach's throne, and took the book in the palm of his hand. Princess Peach continued, "That, Luigi, is a very old and special book. Inside, it contains anything, and everything, you need to know about Heart Crystals. Locations, maps, the history of them, you name it, it's in there. It may be very useful on your journey, so I'm giving it to you. Take extra special care of it, and put it in a safe place, so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands!" Luigi nodded as a way of understanding. He gently tucked it into his back overall pocket, and patted it. Peach continued, "If memory serves me correctly, the closest castle from here, that holds a Heart Crystal, is the Koopa Kingdom, which is only a few miles away. So try starting out there!" Sonic raised an eyebrow.

"The Koopa Kingdom, huh? Hehe, fine by me!", Sonic chuckled, "It'll give me the perfect opportunity to 'thank' Bowser and that old hag for embarrassing me and taking my speed and Chaos Emerald away! You ready Luigi?" Sonic turned his head to Luigi; he nodded.

"Yeah! Come on Sonic, LETS-A GO!", Luigi shouted in excitement. Without any more words to spare, Luigi sprinted from Peach's throne, ran right past Sonic, and dashed out the castle doors.

Sonic laughed, shook his head, and mumbled under his breath, "Sheesh, I never thought I'd catch myself saying this, but... HEY! WAIT FOR ME!", he shouted. And like that, Sonic the Hedgehog sprinted out the castle doors, after Luigi. Things seemed a lot quieter in the throne room.

After a long spell of silence, Princess Peach quietly whispered to herself, "Good luck, Sonic the Hedgehog... and good luck Mario, wherever you are."

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Little does Princess Peach know, not even Mario himself knows wherever he is! Oh yes, sadly, the time has come for us to depart from the Mushroom World, and Sonic the Hedgehog. For now, we must focus on the world's most famous Italian plumber, Mario. When we last saw our mustached hero, after being defeated by the notorious Dr. Eggman with a heavy rapid wrecking ball, Mario had been left to die, after his Heart Crystal was stolen by him. On the verge of losing consciousness, Mario was discovered , and aided, by an unknown civilian. The time is about 9:45 am, and Mario has been unconscious for nearly one hour.

However, it is at this time, that Mario slowly began to regain consciousness. He could tell that he was definitely moved while he was out cold. The feel of the warm rays of sun, that had showered over him in Green Hill, had long since vanished from his face. He could no longer feel the soft grass beneath him. In fact, the first thing Mario felt was a cold chill slipping down his spine. Although he didn't know where he was, he could tell that he was lying on some sort of cold metal table. In an effort to find out where he was, Mario weakly began to open his eyes to scan his surroundings. He slowly began to push himself up from the metal surface he was lying on. As he tried to get up, he could feel something restraining him to where he was. As he looked to his left, he saw that somebody had rolled up his sleeves, and hooked him up to some sort of IV. Mario ripped out the IV from his system, rolled his sleeves back down, sat up, and looked around.

The room he was in looked very high tech. Everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by computers, monitors, controls, knobs, buttons, and tiny blinking lights. The room was also very dark. The only light that was coming from the room was from the tiny lights, and the glow of the monitors. Mario could hear the sound of machines moving all around him. His best guess was that we was in some sort of tech lab. He was actually starting to get a bit frightened. Where was he? Mario felt a throbbing pain in the side of his head. He held onto it, and tried to console himself. What happened to him, and why was he feeling this pain? He remembered! That menacing old man with the wrecking ball; he knocked Mario out cold! But... what happened to him next? He couldn't remember. How did he get to this place, and more importantly, how was he going to get out? Little to Mario's knowledge, all of his questions were soon about to be answered.

Just then, an automated door in the wall in front of Mario's table slid open. Light began to flood the room, which caused Mario to grunt and shield his eyes, while his head began to ache again. As Mario squinted his eyes, he was able to make out a figure entering the room. Although, he could not identify the mysterious being. The person's body was cast in the shadow of the light, and all Mario could see was the person's silhouette. All Mario could tell was that this person looked quiet unusual, and probably wasn't human, much to Mario's fear. The figure entered the room, and the door slid shut, thus causing the room to revert back into it's dark atmosphere. Mario could not even see the figure now; it was too dark. Although, a voice broke out to him in the darkness.

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake. I was getting kind of worried there for a moment. You were out cold for a long time.", The voice sounded very young. Wait, Mario recognized that voice! That sounded like the same voice that belonged to the fellow who helped him out earlier. Nervous, Mario asked where he was. The voice continued, "Sorry it's so dark in here, I thought you would recuperate faster if you rested in a dark and cool place. Here let me see... if I can find... the light switch...", Mario could hear the person fumbling around in the dark, "... Ah, here it is!" Mario heard a click, and the entire room was once again filled with light. Mario covered his eyes at first, but slowly began to let them go. As Mario began to adjust to the light, he began to make out the image of the figure who found him before. As his blurred vision finally turned crystal clear, Mario was literally shocked to believe that his guess before was right; this person **wasn't** human! It had human characteristics, but certainly wasn't one. If anything, it looked more like a big fox! (Okay, if you haven't figured out who this is yet, you really need to punch yourself for being so stupid).

By looking at him, Mario guessed that this fox creature's height went up to about Mario's shoulder. He had a bright yellow coat of fur, with a puffy tuft of white fur on his chest. The fox had tall pointy ears, a button black nose, and a flat muzzle covered with white fur, like his chest. He also had big blue eyes, that reflected a look of pure innocence in the creature. Mario saw that the fox was wearing a set of white cloves along with a pair of sneakers (or trainers to you British English speakers) that were half red and half white. The thing that Mario found the most disturbing was his tail. For some reason, the fox had **two** tails! They were the same color of yellow as the rest of him, but the tips were white. These tails, looking puffy due to all of the fur, were obviously the most noticeable part of him. Mario tried not to say anything, but this was indeed one peculiar looking fox. Although, Mario somehow felt an odd calm come over him when he saw the person's true identity. The fox continued to speak.

"To answer your question of where you are, you're currently in my workshop.", Mario asked what his name was, " My name? My name is Miles Prower, but everyone calls me by my nickname: Tails! And that's for obvious reasons!", the fox answered chuckling and pointing at his twin tails. "So, what's your name?", Tails asked Mario. Mario was a bit hesitant at first, but he finally told Tails his name. "Mario, huh? That's a nice name." Tails answered. Now that Mario and Tails were properly acquainted, Mario wanted some answers! Mario began to ask Tails numerous questions, which eventually began to overwhelm the young fox. "Easy! Slow down! One question at a time! Let me start from the beginning okay?", Mario sighed, and then nodded.

"If you couldn't already tell by all of the technology and mechanisms here in my workshop, I am an extremely intelligent being. Not to toot my own horn, but I have an IQ that almost goes up to 300! I am a specialist in mechanics, and can make virtually **any** machine that is possible. Having such a bright mind, I am often curious about the world around me, so today, I went to a place known as Green Hill to study the area's bio-organisms... and to investigate a sudden increase of chaos energy that I had recently picked up on my equipment", Mario stared at Tails blankly; he didn't like big words. Tails continued, "In simple terms, I came to that area, Green Hill, to study a sudden change in it's energy surroundings. Anyway, I was mostly studying the plant life, and I was pretty much bored, when suddenly, over the back of my shoulder, I noticed that a bright light was glowing behind me. I turned around, and I saw that, off in the distance, of giant blob of bright light was greatly forming behind a hill that was behind me. When I checked one of my inventions known as an Emerald Radar, it went berserk! Concerned about what was happening, I flew to the hill as fast as my two tails could carry me!", Mario began to snicker. Tails responded to this laughter.

"What, it's true! It may not look like it but I can use these two tails to fly by spinning them like a helicopter's blades! Aside from machines, it's what I'm best known for! It doesn't matter, that's not the point. When I got to the hill's peek, I dropped myself down to take a peek at what was going on. The light had already faded when I got there, but I kept my distance... just in case. When I peeked over the hill all I saw was you, and surprisingly, Dr. Eggman, an old enemy of mine. You just kept diving to the ground, trying to avoid Eggman's lame wrecking ball, instead of attacking him. You just weren't fast enough to get an attack through. I saw him hit you in the head, send you flying, and knock you out cold. When you were out cold, he stole some red jewel from you. When the doctor left, I came down to see if you were okay. You were in pretty bad condition, and I didn't think you'd make it, so I brought you back here to my workshop, where you could recover. What was that bright light anyway, and that red jewel that Eggman stole from you? It wasn't by any chance a Chaos Emerald, was it?" There was that term again: 'Chaos Emerald'. That old man, Dr. Eggman mentioned something about a Chaos Emerald to! Why was it so popular here? This was **seriously** bugging Mario now! One moment he's in Peach's castle, fighting Bowser as usual, and the next moment he's in a place called Green Hill with a flying mutant fox, an egg-shaped old man, and Chaos Emeralds? Mario had to get to the bottom this. He just **had** to know where he was, and what was going on. Mario asked Tails another question.

"Huh? Mushroom Kingdom? I've never heard of it.", Tails replied. So Mario wasn't in the Mushroom Kingdom anymore? Mario asked another question, "Mushroom World?", Tails repeated, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what your talking about. This place isn't called the Mushroom World, this planet is called Mobius! Are you sure you're feeling alright?", Tails asked. Mario stared down at his hands with shock. Could it be true? Could he really be stuck in a different world right now? He had to admit that stranger things have happened to him in the past, but this was still pretty weird! How was this even possible? Had the Heart Crystal that he was protecting truly allowed him to warp to a completely different dimension? Mario had exclaimed something to Tails. "WHAT?! You aren't from Mobius?!", Tails repeated. Mario nodded, "So then, if you weren't born on this planet... where **are** you from?" Tails asked. Mario decided it was for the best to tell Tails the whole story, after all, with all of his technology at hand, Tails might have been the key that Mario needed to get the Heart Crystal back, and get him back to the Mushroom Kingdom.

So, Mario told Tails everything. He told Tails that he was from another world called the Mushroom World, and that he lived in a place called the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario told him about how he and his brother were personal friends with the Kingdom's ruler; Princess Peach. Mario told Tails that he was considered a great hero on his world, and that he had saved his world from destruction and domination countless times in the past. Tails was told of Mario's mortal enemy, King Bowser, and his constant rivalry with the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario told Tails about how the Mushroom Kingdom was guarding a special and mystical gem known as a Heart Crystal, and how Bowser and his Koopa army tried to steal it that day. He told Tails about his attempt to protect the crystal, his battle with Bowser, and the hostage situation. Finally, Mario told Tails about how he lost control of the Heart Crystal, got engulfed by a bright blinding light, and that the next thing he knew, he was in Green Hill being pummeled by Dr. Eggman, with his Heart Crystal stolen, and he ended up in the workshop! Tails was silent for a moment, trying to let all of this soak into his brain. Finally, he responded.

"Well, that's certainly an... interesting story. If what you just told me is all true, then you might be more important than I thought. I mean, you're an international hero to an alternate dimension known as the Mushroom World! Who would of guessed? You look so ordinary!",. Tails continued, "But still, if what you say **really** **is** true, then it might also be **a lot** more serious than I thought too!", Mario asked why. Tails responded, "When I was spying on you and Eggman in Green Hill, after he defeated you and took your 'Heart Crystal', it was mentioned that it's power was practically identical to the power of a Chaos Emerald! If that is true, then combined with the blinding bright lights that we both saw, it is no mystery to me at all how you ended up on Mobius. When you were fighting your enemy in your world, you obviously must have accidently activated Chaos Control, using the Heart Crystal, and warped here to our world!", Mario's eyes widened; that term 'Chaos Control' was also used by that Eggman guy. Just what was Chaos Control anyway? Mario couldn't resist any longer, he just had to ask. So that's what he did. "Huh, what's Chaos Control?", Tails repeated Mario's question, "Oh, I'm sorry, you're new to Mobius. You must not know a single thing about Chaos Emeralds or Chaos Control. Here, let me explain..."

And so, Tails went on to tell Mario everything he knew about the Chaos Emeralds. Tails told Mario about their unlimited power, and how they can be used to become invincible, upgrade machinery, or to cross large distances. He told how they could be used positively to make the world a better place, or negatively to destroy the very planet. He told Mario about all of the experiences he has had with the Chaos Emeralds. Finally, he told Mario that there were only seven Chaos Emeralds in existence. Tails began to conclude his little speech.

"... and the Chaos Emeralds can also be used as magnets. They can be used to attract or repel each other. While collecting them, you can use a Chaos Emerald to locate other emeralds, because their powers can attract. When all seven Chaos Emeralds are together, and their power has been used up, they all repel from each other, scattering themselves across the planet, thus making you search for them all over again! That's what is inconvenient about them, but I guess the extra power is worth the search.", Tails began to contemplate the event that had taken place that day, "Wait a minute, I just thought of something. If your Heart Crystal truly is similar to a Chaos Emerald, then how is it possible that you're even here? In our world, with only one Chaos Emerald, it's only normal to travel long distances within our dimension, but to rip a hole in space/time and go to another world would require much more energy than just one emerald. It would take at least two or more! And when I checked you when you were unconscious, I found no second Heart Crystal. There was only one, and Eggman has it now!", Tails stopped, "Anyway, I'm starting to get off topic. If you truly are from another world, we need to find a way to get you home!"

Mario took in all that he had just heard. He was in deep thought now. The Heart Crystal was gone for good; he had excepted that. However, he was now aware about the existence of Chaos Emeralds, and their capabilities. Now he just had to find a way to use this knowledge to get him home. Let's see, he first traveled to Mobius by using the Heart Crystal. It was said that it's power was identical to a Chaos Emerald. Eggman said that he was going to try to collect all of the emeralds, which would grant him ultimate power, and access to all of space/time. That would be bad, and the doctor should be stopped, but on the other hand, Mario had to get home. Wait, that gave Mario an idea! In excitement, Mario broke the silence in the workshop, and told Tails all about his plan.

"Wait a minute! You say that you want to try to find the Chaos Emeralds and use them?!", Tails repeated. Mario quickly nodded. Tails began to start thinking out loud. "Yes, now that you mention it, it would make the most sense because it would help solve both of our problems. After you were defeated, Eggman said that he was going to search for all of the Chaos Emeralds he could get. If that happens, we can easily say that this world would be pretty much done for! Meanwhile, you, Mario, are stranded in an alternate dimension without any means of getting back home to the Mushroom Kingdom. Luckily, the Chaos Emeralds can supply you with a way back home. With the emeralds, we can use Chaos Control to send you back to your own world. This would mean that, if we collected all seven Chaos Emeralds, not only will you get home, but we can stop Dr. Eggman from trying to conquer the world, and construct his Eggman Empire again! Everyone wins... except for Eggman, of course. It's a very good idea, but we're going to need the emeralds fast. For this to work, we better call a guy who is a professional when it comes to Chaos Emeralds!" Tails left Mario's side and walked towards what looked like his mother computer. He typed in a few keys, and a screen popped up with all sorts of information on it. It looked like a program that was used for communication. Mario puzzled over what Tails had said. Who was this 'professional'? Not keeping his eyes off the screen, Tails lowered his hand, picked up a communicator, put it in his ear, and spoke clearly into it.

"Miles 'Tails' Prower calling Sonic the Hedgehog. I repeat, Miles 'Tails' Prower calling Sonic the Hedgehog. Come in Sonic. Do you hear me?", Tails said. There was a long pause on the other end, but no response. Tails spoke again, "Sonic, this is Tails. Are you there? We have another crises with the Chaos Emeralds. Do you hear me?", there was still no response. Mario could sense that his new friend was starting to get nervous, "SONIC! ANSWER ME!" Tails yelled into the communicator. There was still no response. Tails quietly sighed, took the communicator out of his ear, and shut off the program on his computer. "SHOOT!", Tails practically yelled, "I couldn't get a hold of him. It's not like Sonic to not answer his communicator, especially when I'M calling! Hmmm, something must be up."

Mario interrupted Tails's train of thought to ask him another question, "What, who is Sonic the Hedgehog?", Tails repeated. Mario nodded. Tails giggled. "Well he's only the most important guy on all of Mobius! Sonic is to Mobius, what you are to the Mushroom World! He is able to run at barrier breaking speeds wherever he goes to save the day! He has saved this planet more times that I can remember! Not only that, I'm also his best friend and sidekick. We're practically surrogate brothers! I've accompanied him on countless adventures, so I'm pretty strong myself. Anyway, this is not good. We've got Dr. Eggman on the loose again, and Sonic isn't responding to our call.", Tails gave out a sigh, and slipped into deep thought. After a moment or two, the two-tailed fox grew a sly look on his face. He definitely had an idea. In a toying tone of voice, Tails spoke again, "Oh well, since Sonic doesn't seem that interested, I guess that means that **you** are going to have to search for the Chaos Emeralds!", Mario had a shocked facial expression. How could Mario get these mystical emeralds? He didn't know his way around this planet. Not only that, since Mario's normal fighting style wasn't affective here, he wouldn't stand much of a chance. Tails was persistent, and tried to convince him to do it.

"Come on Mario! I know that it may seem tough, but if what you told me is true, you are a great hero with a lot of power. You should be used to these types of situations by now! Not only that, I know that you don't know this planet very well, so I'll be tagging along with you. I could be your navigator. I would follow you around, guide you from emerald to emerald, and I could be sort of a tutor; showing you how to survive and fight in your new environment. What do you say? Please?", Mario had to think about it for a while. On one hand, he needed to improve on his fighting, he hardly knew this fox, he hardly knew this planet, and he had no idea where to start searching if he had agreed to help. On the other hand, if he got these emeralds, he could stop Dr. Eggman from using them, which would ultimately save this entire planet, and not only that, since the Heart Crystal was officially out of bounds, this might have been Mario's only shot at going home. Mario had made his decision. He took a deep breath, turned his head towards Tails, and nodded. He would help look for the Chaos Emeralds.

"GREAT! It's settled then!", Tails exclaimed, "... Although, there is one matter we need to attend to.", said Tails. Mario stared at him questionably. Tails continued, "No offense, but I saw how you dealt with Eggman earlier. I don't know what your fighting skills were like on the Mushroom World, but on Mobius, it's a whole different game. Not only that, your kind of slow. If we want to get to all seven emeralds before Dr. Eggman does, you're going to have to pick up the pace!", Mario and Tails thought about this for a moment or two. Finally, Tails snapped his fingers and excitedly yelled, "I got it!", with out saying anything else, Tails dashed out of the room, leaving Mario alone. Mario began to ponder what his new fox friend was up to. Hopefully something useful. About two or three minutes later, Tails re-entered the room, carefully holding a metal carrying case in the palms of both hands. Slowly and seriously, Tails began to speak again.

"Mario, as I already told you, I am a great inventor, and I have made many amazing contraptions in the past. I also told you how I am the best friend and sidekick of Mobius's greatest hero: Sonic the Hedgehog. Being Sonic's sidekick, I would always follow him wherever he went to help him save our world. Since he is able to run at supersonic speeds, naturally, it is difficult to keep up with him. I would always have to spin my twin tails to boost my speed if I wanted to assist him, and even with that extra speed, I would still end up eating his dust sometimes. Even though my twin tails method has done me well for the past few years now, I still wasn't completely satisfied. So, not even a few weeks ago, I worked hard in this very workshop to develop these!", Tails undid the locks on the metal case and opened it. Mario peeked inside the case and saw what Tails thought would help him on his quest. Mario saw a pair of sneakers. It looked like a pair of normal, everyday sneakers. (They looked almost exactly like Sonic's sneakers. Visually, the only difference was the color scheme. While Sonic's sneakers are red with a white strap going across to a buckle, these sneakers were white with a red strap going across to a buckle. Other than that, they looked almost identical). Of course, there had to be more to them. Why else would Tails even bother showing Mario this? Tails was now about to properly explain what they exactly were to Mario, "You see, these are no ordinary shoes Mario. Oh no, in fact, after much heavy research, I was able to come up with materials that will almost never wear out due to heat, friction, pressure, etc. I've also designed these shoes to make you go super fast! You'd be able to break the sound barrier, and move as quickly as Sonic does. With all of that extra speed, you would be able to perform a whole bunch of new attacks, such as a spin dash for example. Not only that, but I guarantee that these sneakers will make you fast enough to try to beat Eggman to the Chaos Emeralds, and you'd be able to actually dodge and fight back at him, unlike last time! In basic terms Mario, you would be able to do everything that Sonic the Hedgehog is able to do, when you think about it. To be honest, I originally created these special sneakers so I wouldn't have to use my twin tails to keep up with Sonic... but I guess that you need them now more than I do, so you can use them if you want.", Tails paused for a brief moment, "So, what do you say Mario? Do you want to give these sneakers a try? Are you ready for a new kind of adventure?"

Mario stared into the box for the longest time. If these shoes are really capable of doing everything that Tails said, then there may be a shot for Mario after all. I guess that fox was telling the truth when he said that he was extremely intelligent. Mario looked up at Tails and solemnly nodded his head. He sat back down on the metal chair, and removed his old shoes. As he held them in his hands, he felt the soles of the shoes. They were very worn, as if they had walked 1,000 miles. Mario placed his old shoes in a safe place in his overalls, and grabbed his new sneakers. He put the left one on first, and then it's twin. Mario couldn't describe the feeling of the shoes. They certainly felt bigger and looser than his old pair, but strangely more comfortable. He slid off the table and let his feet hit the floor. He didn't know whether it was really the shoes, or if it was all just in his head, but the second that Mario hit the floor, he felt some strange energy flowing inside of him. It was a feeling that told him that he could almost never get tired. Whatever the feeling was, Mario liked it. He had a good feeling about all of this! He thanked Tails for the shoes, and asked where they should begin their search. Tails typed some things into his mother computer and checked his emerald radar.

"Well, according to this, the closest signal of chaos energy is coming from the Green Hill Zone. Luckily it's only about four miles southeast from this location. Strangely, the signal is in motion. That could mean that someone might already have the Chaos Emerald. Hmmmm... now that I think about it, as he was leaving, Dr. Eggman did say that he was going to **continue** looking for the Chaos Emeralds in the Green Hill Zone. Could that have meant that Eggman already had a Chaos Emerald to start with?! This is worse than I thought! He might already be one step ahead of us. Mario, I think it would be best if we returned to Green Hill, to start our quest there! We **need** to get that Chaos Emerald back from Dr. Eggman, and if there are any more emeralds that are in the Green Hill Zone, then we have to stop him from obtaining them! Who knows, maybe on the way we'll run into Sonic the Hedgehog, and he could help us out.", Tails stated to Mario. Mario brought his right fist to his chest and nodded.

Mario walked close enough to the automatic door so that it would open. He backed up about two or three steps, took at deep breath, and made his very first sonic boom out of Tails's workshop. Tails stood there for a brief moment. That invention of his worked better than he thought. With that, Tails shut off the lights to the room, laughed, shook his head, and mumbled under his breath, "Sheesh, I never thought I'd catch myself saying this again, but... HEY! WAIT FOR ME!", he shouted. He spun his two tails together, and sprinted out the door to try and catch the speedy Italian plumber. The doors shut behind Tails, and the room was dark and silent. Meanwhile, the outside world was bright and noisy, although it had one sound in particular. It was filled to the brim with the sound of adventure!

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**Well, there you have it folks! Now begins the grand adventure that you all have been waiting patiently for! Mario will be running across Mobius at the speed of sound, with Tails by his side, collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds, and foiling Dr. Robotnik's evil scheme. Meanwhile, Sonic the Hedgehog, accompanied by Luigi, will be traveling across the kingdom from castle to castle, stomping on Bowser's minions, and putting an end to his evil ways! For those of you who see where I'm going with this story, I congratulate you! Once again, I sincerely apologize for taking so long to finish this chapter. Between having writer's block, and school being back in session, I almost never found the time to work on this. However, I made a promise to myself that I would post Chapter 3 on FanFiction before the new year, so here it is today! I originally wanted this chapter done months ago! Anyway, don't think for a moment that this story is over. I will work on Chapter 4 whenever I can, and hopefully it with be released in a month or two! Until that time, I thank you for reading. Please leave reviews! I want to hear what you honestly think of the story! See you next time! **


	4. Green Hill Zone

**Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos!**

Author Notes: I do not claim ownership over any characters mentioned in this story! The only things that I claim ownership over are N.O.A.H. and the Heart Crystals. Any other characters and items mentioned in this story are either owned by Nintendo or SEGA, and this story is for entertainment purposes only! Hello readers! It's me again, and this time, I'm bringing the heat with Chapter 4! After I posted the previous chapter, due to all of the e-mails that I got, I was beginning to notice that this story is starting to gain a lot of popularity. That makes me feel great, and I want thank everyone who wrote me a review and put this story under their favorites. I've also noticed that my chapters are starting to get ridiculously long, so to shorten the length of the chapter, I've decided to have this chapter focus on only one of the two worlds. I hope this doesn't disappoint you, but on the other hand, there is going to be more action in future chapters, so I really hope that evens it out. Well, before the author notes get any longer, I present to you Chapter 4!

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**Chapter 4: Green Hill Zone**

As the adventure finally begins, we continue the story still on the peculiar planet known as Mobius. The time is nearly 10:15 am, and the location is just on the outskirts of Green Hill. Oh yes, despite the chaos that had occurred roughly two hours prior, it still looked just as beautiful, and just as pleasant. The golden sun's mighty rays were still raining down from the sky and bathing the trees and plants of the area. The emerald green grass, the towering palm trees, and the checkered patterned rocks still remained intact and were thriving in the caring warmth of the sun. The river, although large and mighty, delicately flowed the water down the stream, in the same manner a neutering mother would carry her young child. It is here that Mobius's newest hero makes his grand debut.

Outside of Green Hill, a mysterious blur was rapidly making it's way to the area. The blur was red with a touch of blue in it. The blur was moving at a rate that only a sonic boom could follow. On the very outskirts of Green Hill, the speedy blur came to a halt. As it halted, a loud screech could be heard in it's wake. Once the blur stopped, it began to take a form. It was none other than the new king of speed, Super Mario. When Mario stopped, he lost his balance from the skid, and almost fell over. He was able to maintain his stance, and let out a sigh. He was still trying to get the hang of his new ability.

As Mario stood there, he scanned the perimeter with his eyes. As far as he could see, there was no sign of Dr. Robotnik. If he just stood there, the doctor could easily get away, so he felt that he couldn't waste any more time. Mario backed up a few paces so that he could get a good start, when suddenly, he heard a faint voice calling out to him from behind.

"HEY MARIO, STOP!", the voice yelled. Mario turned around and saw his new companion, Miles "Tails" Prower flying up to him at full speed. As he approached his target, the young fox slowed down his pace, and landed a few feet in front of Mario. "Phew, I finally caught ya!", Tails said, "Listen, before I forget, I just realized that you have never been to Mobius before! I don't know how you did things in the Mushroom Kingdom, but I bet it was probably a lot different than how things are taken care of here. You must not know a thing about surviving here yet, so let me give you a brief tutorial on the things that are here, and what to do with them.", Tails lifted up the wrist of his right glove, revealing what looked like some sort of high tech wrist watch. Tails pressed a button on his wrist, and it began to light up. Suddenly, to Mario's surprise, a holographic image appeared from it. It was an image of three spinning golden rings. Tails began.

"First, and most importantly, these are rings. They may look like ordinary rings to you, but here on Mobius, they are necessary for survival. You'll need as many of these rings as possible to stay alive. If you get hit by an enemy, you'll probably drop all of your rings, so try to get back as many as possible before they disappear. If an enemy hits you when you don't have any of these rings, there's a huge possibility that you'll die, so keep your eyes peeled for these.", Mario gulped at the thought of dying. Tails pressed another button on his wrist. The image of the rings disappeared, and in it's place, an image of what looked like a t.v. screen appeared. "Next, these are called monitors. Monitors are scattered all throughout Mobius. If you smash one open, you'll get some sort of prize, such as rings, a speed boost, temporary invincibility, or more commonly, a force shield." Tails pressed a button on his wrist, and the monitor image vanished. Now, there was a image of Tails surrounded by an odd transparent field of energy. Tails continued, "If you get a force shield, you will be able to get hit by an enemy without losing your rings. However, if you get hit once, the shield will vanish, so be careful. There are many unique force shields. Some can let you breath underwater, and others can magnetically attract rings to you!", Tails pressed the button again. The image of Tails in the shield was replaced by the image of a spring. "This is a spring", said Tails, "You'll see these numerous times during our mission. If you step on these, they will send you up really high to places you couldn't normally reach. It's great for getting onto different paths or finding hidden treasures like monitors or rings." Tails pressed one more button on his wrist. The spring image disappeared, and in it's place, several images of creepy looking robots appeared on the hologram. "Last, but not least, these are a few of Dr. Eggman's creations. Eggman is known as one of the most intelligent scientists in the entire world, with an IQ of 300! Instead of fighting himself, Eggman usually sends out an army of robots that he builds himself. In the Green Hill zone, my scans have shown that Eggman has several of his earlier models running amuck in this area. They are the badniks.", Tails pointed at a black wasp-like robot, a purple caterpillar-like robot with spikes, a red crab-like robot, a ladybug-like robot on wheels, and a red pirana-like robot. He named them in that order, "These are Buzzbomber, Caterkiller, Crabmeat, Moto Bug, and Jaws. These are the most common enemies that you'll see in this area. They are actually pretty weak, and if you hit them at the right speed, you can destroy them like nothing!", Tails pressed the button on his wrist one more time, and the holographic image vanished. He pulled his glove's wrist back down and looked up at Mario, who was just soaking in all of the information that he just heard.

"Now that you know about the way things are done here on Mobius, you know what to do, right?", Tails asked. Mario stared at him for the longest time, then slowly, he nodded. A grand smile spread across the young fox's face. "Great, then let's do this!", he shouted. Mario nodded, looked ahead of him, and officially began his adventure! (Cue Green Hill Zone Theme)

With Tails following behind him, Mario started out at a slight jog, and then gradually brought himself up to sonic speed. Up ahead, he could three rings floating in between two palm trees. He jumped up and grabbed them without slowing down. Not far away was a large checker-stoned outcrop with a monitor on it. He flipped onto the outcrop and smashed the monitor, gaining ten more rings. As Mario and Tails continued, they were confronted by a Buzzbomber. This badnik kept firing lasers at them, but Mario was quickly able to dodge them, and slammed himself right into the machine, destroying it with a mighty explosion. In front of them, Mario noticed that there was a spring hiding on top of the palm tree up ahead. Mario leaped from the stone outcrop, and landed on the spring, sending him skyward, which led him to six more rings. Moving upward on the spring for the first time was a marvelous sensation to Mario; up above he felt like he was really soaring. The force of the spring propelled him for quiet a few meters, and he landed feet first in front of a wooden bridge.

Ahead, Mario grew sight of a Jaws badnik jumping up and over the bridge to try to get a piece of the Italian plumber. Mario thought he could outrun it, but unfortunately, the Jaws was able to get a bite out of him! This caused Mario to panic, and he dropped all of his rings. Luckily, he was able to pick them all back up before they disappeared. Mario continued ahead with his fast pace down a steady slope, but suddenly, the trail made a sharp slope up, like a skating ramp. Mario dashed up this ramp, and grabbed the rings that were on it. The trail Mario and Tails were on began to ascend, as a bunch of checker-stoned ledges laid ahead of them. Without hesitating, Mario leaped up onto and ahead of these, destroying the two Crabmeats that got in their way. This brought Mario to another wooden bridge that was guarded by not just one, but two more Jaws. Nervous, Mario looked back at Tails, whom gave him a nod of reassurance. Mustering his courage, Mario crouched into a little ball, and performed his first spin dash across the bridge. With perfect timing, the spin dash cut right through the Jaws, destroying them both when they jumped up to the bridge.

The path began to travel upward even more. Mario jumped onto a white boulder to grab two more rings, and then leaped onto the ledge of the heightening path. It was there, that Sonic and Tails were greeted by two more Buzzbombers. Luckily, they were able to destroy both of them before they fired their weapons. The path lead Mario up a very gradual hill, which gave him five rings. Mario and Tails had to stop, because the path had been interrupted by a big gap. It looked like a long way down, so Mario didn't want to risk jumping over it. To his luck, Mario found a spring in front of him. He could use this to get past the gap. Without any more hesitation, Mario jumped onto the spring, and flew right over the gap. He landed hard on the ledge on the other side, grabbing two more rings. However, before Mario could take a step, he could feel the ground becoming very uneasy. Suddenly, before he knew it, the whole ledge he was standing on gave out and collapsed under his feet! As Mario fell down the cliff, Tails called out Mario's name in shock. To cushion the fall, Mario curled himself in a little ball, and waited to feel the hard ground against his bones. Fortunately, Mario was able to land, in the gap feet first. Mario was a bit shaken up about this, but only for half a second. He just kept on moving. Tails chuckled to himself. With that will to keep moving, this Mario guy kind of reminded him of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Continuing on his way, Mario jumped over a set of spikes, and landed on a conveniently placed spring, which sprung him up to three more rings. The spring got him over another set of spikes that was right in front of him. Ahead of him, Mario could see three more sets of spikes, which he all quickly jumped over. He landed on a checker-stoned outcrop in front of him, and was surprised to see four monitors lined up next to each other all in a row. Mario smashed the first three monitors and got ten rings from each of them. However, when he smashed the fourth monitor, something different happened. He was suddenly surrounded by sparkling stars. Confused, he looked back at Tails, but then remembered what he previously said to him. Some containers could also make you temporally invincible! Mario assumed that's what happened to him, and got a mischievous smirk on his face. Things suddenly got a bit more interesting.

Jumping up onto the ledge ahead of him, the temporarily invincible Mario continued on his merry way. Not far away, Mario could clearly see a Moto Bug charging right at him with his pincers exposed for a strong offence. Unfortunately for the Moto Bug, Mario's defense was stronger, so the plumber simply ran right through him, destroying the robot without lifting a finger. As the ledge he was on came to an end, Mario saw that over his left shoulder, there was a higher ledge that could get him back onto the main trail. With the help of Tails, Mario got back onto the main trail, which led Mario to his first (and certainly not last) loop. Mario was nervous at first, but was easily able to put his newfound speed to use, as he flipped through the loop with no problem, grabbing himself five more rings.

Past the loop, Mario now saw that the trail was coming to a dead end, as there was a giant wall of checkered stone in front of him. However, Tails noticed that there was a hole in the wall for them to go through. It wasn't a very large hole, so Mario and Tails curled themselves into tiny balls, and went through. Surprisingly to Mario, it felt like the hole was sucking him in like a vacuum. The trail dropped them lower in an extremely curvy fashion. Mario and Tails were released from the vacuum, but before they could take form, they couldn't stop rolling, which caused them to get sucked into another vacuum hole in the checker stoned wall ahead of them. This trail was just as curvy, and wasn't exactly Mario's favorite part of Green Hill.

Like the last one, Mario and Tails were shot from the hole with a lot of force. With all of the excitement, and still curled into a ball, Mario didn't notice that he was heading towards a giant ramp-like structure. He and Tails rolled right through the ramp, which sent them literally soaring into the air. Higher and higher Mario rose, and more and more his adrenalin began to pump. This was one the most exciting experiences he had all day! At the peak of Mario's flight, there was a huge hoard of rings clumped together, simply floating in the air without a care. Before their decent, Mario and Tails were able to grab about twenty-six of the floating rings, and smash open a Buzzbomber that was floating around where it shouldn't have been. After a brief fall, Mario safely landed in between two palm trees. It was now, that Mario's invincibility finally wore of. The circling stars vanished from him, and he was vulnerable once again.

Jumping over two ledges, and a marble outcrop, Mario made his way to yet another wooden bridge, guarded by two more Jaws. In one bountiful flip, he was able to slice open both of the Jaws that jumped up to get him, and grab the five rings that were suspended on it. It was at this point, that Tails noticed that the chaos signal was getting a little stronger. Mario and Tails leaped down from the ledge, grabbed five more rings, and crossed paths with another checker-stoned outcrop. Mario noticed there was a monitor on top of it, so he leaped onto it, smashed it open, collected ten rings, and daintily leaped down. Up ahead, Mario saw that the trail mysteriously ended, and at the end of it, there was a platform. The platform had the same rich emerald green grass that the rest of Green Hill had growing, and it looked just large enough to fit both Mario and Tails. They both stepped onto the tiny platform. As soon as they stepped on, they noticed that it was slowly starting to decent from the ledge they were previously on. When the platform made it to the bottom of the ledged, Mario and Tails leaped off, and continued down a steady slope of a hill, collecting a final ten rings. Everything after that was a long stretch of palm trees and nothingness.

"Okay Mario, I think we can stop here for now. The chaos radar is acting much stronger than before!", Tails shouted ahead to Mario. Mario obligely stopped, but tapped his foot impatiently. Tails outstretched the chaos radar ahead of himself, trying to get a clear reading of where Dr. Robotnik might be. Suddenly, after a few circles, the chaos radar began to beep and vibrate harder than louder! Tails silently pointed his finger to the East and instructed Mario to go in that direction. Mario and Tails jogged for a few yards in that direction, crossing a wooden bridge in the process. They brought themselves to an open area of Green Hill, with nothing in sight but the palm trees, the river behind them, and two grassy platforms floating in midair. It was here that Tails's chaos radar was going absolutely crazy! As it violently shook, Tails instructed out to Mario.

"Oh yeah, we're definitely close by! My best guess would be a few meters that way!" Suddenly, a low voice cackled out of no where to Tails.

"Or better yet, why don't you try behind you!", Tails and Mario quickly turned around, only to see the menacing Dr. Robotnik come towards them in his Egg Mobile. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the fox boy! What brings **you** here? Trying to play super hero again? If I were you Tails, I'd go play somewhere else. These parts can be very... dangerous sometimes." Anger began to flow through Tails

"Eggman!", shouted Tails, "Hand over the Chaos Emerald you took! We've been hunting you down all day!", Normally, Robotnik would have gotten mad at such defiance, especially if that crack came from a certain blue hedgehog, however, Robotnik seemed quite amused by this.

"My, my, such sharp words for lad such as yourself. I guess I could say the same for you. I saw what you did to my lovely robots all over this zone. And who is this **we **your talking about? Surly you're not talking about that ragtag hedgehog, Sonic, especially in light of the situation that he's currently in!" Tails seemed really taken back by this comment. It was true that Sonic didn't answer his communicator earlier that day. Did Eggman know something that Tails didn't?

"Sonic... what do you mean by that Eggman? Did you do something to him?! I swear, if you did...", Robotnik wasn't paying attention to the two-tailed fox. He scanned his eyes across the field, and landed them on a certain Italian plumber. Robotnik's eyes dilated behind his glasses.

"You again?!", Dr. Eggman shouted, "Hmph, you're pretty persistent aren't you? I didn't actually think you would have survived our first meeting! So, I see that you've teamed up with the fox boy. Well that's fine with me, the joke's on you! I still have your little heart-shaped gem, and with this Chaos Emerald with me, I can't lose!"

"That's what you said the other twenty-eight times!", Tails shot back at the scientist. This hit a soft nerve for Dr. Robotnik. He slammed his fist on his control panel, and his wrecking ball dropped down once again.

"Why you ungrateful pest! I'm aught to crush you right now for saying that!", Tails gasped and stepped back one step. Seeing his distress, Mario ran in front of Tails, and outstretched his arms, glaring at Eggman. Tails whispered into Mario's ear.

"Mario, that's Eggman's wreaking ball. My friend Sonic told me about it once or twice. Defeating it is fairly simple. All you have to do is jump and move. Make sure to hit Eggman in his cockpit. I know you had difficulty earlier, but with the sneakers I gave you, you should be fine. I know you can do it!", Mario's glaring eyes never left Dr. Robotnik's. Robotnik casually laid himself back in his seat.

"So, that's the way it's going to be huh? I see that you have chosen the side you want to fight for. Very well then, as a miserable rodent once said, you want this emerald so badly? You'll have to fight me for it! Robotnik charged at Mario, swing the wreaking ball as he went. Mario and Tails looked back at each other and nodded. They knew what must be done. Just as Eggman was about to attack them, Mario and Tails both dived out of the way in opposite directions. Thinking fast, while Robotnik's backside was facing, Mario flipped onto one of the platforms, and slammed right into him. Robotnik jerked and let out a grunt, and Mario let himself hit the ground. Mario didn't have much time to think as Robotnik changed direction and swung his ball again. He spin dashed under the ball just as it was about to hit him; he barely felt the ball scrape against his back. Mario jumped up onto the opposite platform and slammed himself into Dr. Robotnik's Egg Mobile yet again. The Egg Mobile took a decent amount of damage.

Getting angry, Robotnik swung his wreaking ball a little harder. As Mario landed on the ground, he didn't have time to dive out of the way. WHAM! The ball hit Mario square in the chest, making him fly soaring across the field. Dr. Eggman laughed lowly as Mario dropped every last one of his rings. Luckily, Mario was able to retain consciousness this time, much to the shock of Eggman, but if he didn't get his rings back, and fast, his game would be over! (Pun intended) Mario zoomed across the field, dodging the wrecking ball in the process, and was able to recover twenty of his rings. Now, it was personal! Letting determination brew up inside of him, Mario leaped up without the help of the platform, curled into a ball, and slammed himself into the Egg Mobile yet again. Tails cheered Mario on, as Robotnik continued to swing his ball. Mario rolled under the ball again, jumped onto the platform, and hit Eggman once more. As Robotnik floated there, dread began to secretly fill his body, as he noticed that he was gradually losing control of the Egg Mobile, due to all of the damage. As Eggman continued to swing, he eventually hit Mario again, sending him across the field. Mario recovered twelve of his rings, and slammed himself into Dr. Robotnik a fifth time.

This battle went on for another minute or so. As Robotnik swung the ball, Mario just ducked under it again, and hit Robotnik's craft. Bit by bit, Robotnik could feel his Egg Mobile failing, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep up with it. Eggman managed to hit Mario once more, buying him some time. Mario grabbed eight of his rings, jumped onto the platform again, and flipped his body into Eggman again. As this battle became dragged out long enough, Mario heard Tails shout out to him.

"Mario! You're almost there! Just one more hit should do it!", Hearing this, Dr. Eggman tried to swing his ball more rapidly, but it did no good for him. As Mario spin dashed under the ball, he leaped up onto the grassy platform, and with all of his might, he slammed into Dr. Robotnik as hard as he could. This left a substantial dent on the Egg Mobile. Suddenly, sparks began to fly from Eggman's craft. Much to Robotnik's fright, the hull suddenly burst into flames! The flames ran down the craft, and burnt right through the chain that supported the wreaking ball. The ball fell to the ground and smashed into little pieces, leaving the poor doctor wide open and defenseless.

"GAH!! RETREAT!", Dr. Eggman shouted as the whole craft began to fill with smoke. As Robotnik began to fly away to escape, an electronic voice came from the craft's control board.

"_I told you that you should have brought something more deadly, but noooooooooo! You had to be Mr. Overconfident AS USUAL and bring the stupid wreaking ball! This is the third time that it's failed! Why can't you learn from your mistakes?!_", the voice of N.O.A.H. scolded the doctor.

"Oh just shut up and fly N.O.A.H., we have to keep the emerald secure before... oh no!", Dr. Eggman looked behind him only to see that he was behind followed by none other than Miles "Tails" Prower! As the brave fox spun his helicopter-like tails harder, he made his way up to the Egg Mobile, until Tails was shoulder to shoulder with the doctor. As Eggman stared nervously at the two-tailed fox, Tails balled his hand into a fist, cracked his knuckles, and shouted to Robotnik.

"Eggman! Give us that Chaos Emerald!", and without any hesitation, he punched Dr. Eggman right across the face, sending the Egg Mobile spinning out of control. As Robotnik screamed like a little girl, the force of the spinning craft flung Dr. Robotnik's gray Chaos Emerald out of his reach, sending it plummeting to the ground. Luckily, the speedy Italian plumber was tailing the bunch not too far behind, and was able to dive out, and catch the Chaos Emerald in his cupped hands before it hit the ground. As Mario lied there on the ground, Tails landed himself beside him, and together, they watched Dr. Robotnik disappear into the horizon.

Tails outstretched his hand and helped Mario up onto his feet. As Mario held the grey emerald up to the sun, it glistened beautifully, like everything else around them. Mario could feel the power coming from the Chaos Emerald. It was warm, yet somewhat comforting. Strangely enough, it felt almost identical to the power he felt drawn from the Heart Crystal back at Princess Peach's castle in the Mushroom Kingdom.

"Well, it's not your Heart Crystal, but it'll do for now.", said Tails, "One down six to go, then you get to go back home!", Mario nodded, but Tails continued, "But still... what Eggman said before... about my friend Sonic... just what did he mean be that? 'In light of the situation he's currently in.' Could something of happened to him?", Mario gave Tails a pat of reassurance on the shoulder and said something to him, "What? Your right Mario. I'm sure I'll see Sonic again too. Now then, on to more important matters, where to find the next Chaos Emerald.", Tails pulled out the Chaos radar and pushed a few buttons on it, reconfiguring it. After a few minutes of scanning, Tails found a location.

"Hmmmm, according to the radar signal, the closest energy reading is a long way up North. I'd say a couple hundred miles.", Tails looked up at Mario, "Whaddya say Mario? Are you up for a little work out?", Mario stood there for a few seconds. He stowed the Chaos Emerald into his overall pocket, and a smile came across his face. He backed up a few feet, and sprinted away, up to sonic speed, until he was nothing but a blur yet again. As Tails watched Mario's figure fade northward off in the distance, he couldn't help but smirk to himself. In fact, he ended up bursting into laughter.

"Oh yeah," Tails said chuckling, " This guy is **definitely **like Sonic!", Finishing up his joyful recollection, Miles Prower rapidly spun his twin tails, and chased after his new friend.

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**With one of the seven Chaos Emeralds in their possession, Mario and Tails make their way over the vastly region of Mobius to their next grand adventure. However, there are still some things that are left unsaid. Is this the last we'll see of Dr. Eggman? Where exactly are Mario and Tails headed? Will Tails ever learn the sad truth of Sonic's fate? Those questions, among others, will be answered in the future. Be sure to come back next chapter, where we take a look on the adventures of Luigi and Sonic the Hedgehog as they hunt down the first Heart Crystal in the Mushroom World. All this and more next time, on Chapter 5 of Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos! Okay so what did you guys think? Personally, I think I could've done better, but it's really all up to what you guys think. If you hadn't already guessed, this was basically an exact retelling of Green Hill Zone Act 1, and the boss battle, from the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game. I had to watch a lot of videos, and it took me a while to try to describe the level in a way that did it justice. This chapter was my tribute to the older Sonic games. Also, I'm aware that I didn't meet my two month deadline that I set for myself last chapter. There are no excuses this time, I was just lazy, sue me! On that note, I'm guessing that Chapter 5 should be out in about two or three months. I know that sounds long, so please bear with me! I'll work on it whenever I get enough time, and I'll see if I can get it out before then. I really appreciate everybody who has enjoyed the series thus far! As always, please leave lots of honest reviews! I'm open to any suggestions or questions you may have. Until next chapter, bye for now!**


	5. Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom

**Mario & Sonic: Crossover Chaos!**

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Author Notes: I do not claim ownership over any characters mentioned in this story! The only things I claim ownership over are N.O.A.H. and the Heart Crystals. Any other characters or items mentioned in this story are either owned by Nintendo or SEGA, and this story is for entertainment purposes only. Great! Hello readers! It's great to be back, and it's great that I can finally share Chapter 5 with all of you! So, what this chapter going to be about you may ask? Well, last chapter was my tribute to the old Sonic the Hedgehog games, so I guess this chapter will be my tribute to the Super Mario games! If some are you readers aren't pleased with this, then **don't worry**. I just want to get my two tributes out of the way, and once I do that, I promise that the majority of the rest of the story will be of my original creation! Yes, I actually have a few good ideas for the series that I can't wait to write out, and I hope you will like them. But anyway, that won't be for a long wile. For now, I just want you to sit and relax as you enjoy my labor. Without any more delay, I present to you Chapter 5!

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**Chapter 5: Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom**

As the story continues, we find ourselves back in the curious place that is the Mushroom World. At the moment, the weather was particularly fair. As it was about 11:00 a.m., the bright ball of fire, known as the sun, had almost reached the highest point of the sky, and spread it's light across the area. It was bright and sunny, as usual; while a couple of clouds blotched the clear sky. It was such great weather, even the clouds seem to be smiling (which they normally do in the Mushroom World, as odd as that may seem). The area we bring ourselves to is a green and lively area, which surrounds a generally linear dirt trail. It is on this very trail, that we see two shady figures break through the horizon. As the two figures slowly made their way down the path, they gave off familiar vibes that we all know way too well.

The light from the sun begins to come into focus, and the light better reveals these two familiar strangers. With one garbed in green, with the mark of his first initial "L" placed atop his hat, along with a gigantic yet round nose, paired together with a thick black and well groomed mustache, we see that one of these heroes is none other than the king of second fiddles; Luigi! The other hero was covered from head to toe with blue fur, and with intimidating yet stylish spikes which crawled down his entire backside. Between his old yet spotless white gloves and his trendy red and white sneakers, it has hard not to distinguish the heroic form of the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh yes, the Mushroom Kingdom's newest hero traveled down that lonesome trail determined, focused ... and pooped! Yes, as hard as hard as it is to believe, the hero once known to travel across entire land masses in record times was actually exhausted. The blue hedgehog panted lightly as he and his companion made their way to that scoundrel Bowser's castle to retrieve the legendary Heart Crystal. Sonic turned to his new friend, Luigi.

"pant pant, I thought the princess said the Koopa Kingdom was only a few miles away.", Sonic complained. Luigi answered.

"It **is** only a few miles away; eight miles is generally close by as far as kingdoms go." Sonic collapsed in shock when he heard this.

"EIGHT MILES?!", Sonic yelled while getting up from the hard dirt. "Eight miles, are you serious?! Luigi, I used to be able to run eight miles in four minutes and ten seconds! Why is it that I'm getting tired just by **walking** eight miles when I used to be able to **run **five times that distance without a single pant? Scratch that, we have been walking for hours, and we haven't even broken eight miles yet? If we keep moving at this speed, Bowser is going to get the other Heart Crystals for sure!" And with that, he let out a long groan of annoyance and dropped his head. Luigi stared at Sonic from the corners of his eyes and smirked a tiny bit.

"Hmm, you know, you need to take a deep breath and calm down.", Luigi said bending down and scooping some dirt from the road into his hand. He let the dirt slide through his hands as the gusty winds carried it into the distance. "My big brother and I have moved like this for our entire existence, and have fought Bowser for countless years at this speed. Yet somehow, we always manage to defeated him every time. Do you know why that is?", Sonic shook his head. Luigi gave him full eye contact. "It's because for every step we take, Bowser is two steps slower!" A small smirk came to Sonic's face. That smirk soon turned to his classic grin. Finally, he couldn't help but laugh.

"Wow, I must** really** be messed up here.", Sonic said chuckling, "It seems the roles have been reversed haven't they? I bet you this has been the first time in my entire life somebody told me to calm down." Sonic stopped laughing. "I also bet that was the first time I ever freaked out like **that** before. I guess being stripped of my speed, my natural safe guard, my one thing that's kept me cool, alive, and powerful has gotten me a little jittery, huh?" Luigi stepped up beside Sonic.

"I know what you mean Sonic. To be honest with you, when it comes to world saving quests like these, **I'm **the one that usually freaks out like that, and **I'm** the one that usually needs to be told to calm down. I suppose that's why my brother is known as the big hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, and not myself. He **never** lost his cool.", Luigi chuckled a little to himself, then grew dead silent for a moment or two "It's funny isn't it?What one flash of white light can do, what one change in protagonists can do... what the loss of one brother can do.", Luigi sunk his eyes and grew silent for a long time, then Sonic spoke up.

"We'll bring your brother back Luigi, once we gather the Heart Crystals and open a way back to my home world.", Sonic placed a hand on Luigi's shoulder, "I promise." Luigi smirked again.

"If it bugs you that much, I'll have you know that Bowser's castle is only a half mile away from this location.", After saying that, Luigi remembered something important, "OH! That's right! Sonic? I just thought of something! You've always relied on your speed and skill to get throughout your planet**.**Being stripped of that, you probably have no idea how to fight on this world. From what I've come to understand, it's a tad more complicated than what you're accustomed to on Mobydick... or what whatever you said your planet was called.", Sonic corrected the name of his home planet. Luigi blushed it off, "Anyhoo, like I was saying, you're going to have to learn how to get through these kingdoms like Mario and I do. I need to give you a brief tutorial on how things are done here. Oh, maybe I can use the book Princess Peach gave me as an aid!" Luigi said in his thick Italian accent. He reached into the pocket he held the tiny little pocket book in, and pulled it out. He rubbed his thumb across the tattered cover. Luigi licked his thumb and started flipping through the pages until he found the specific ones he was looking for. Finally, after about two minutes of searching, he muttered to Sonic.

"This book is seriously ancient. A lot of this stuff is a bit outdated, so I'll just use the pictures for the sake of visual aids.", (A note to the readers: this is going to take a while for Luigi to explain to Sonic. If you are already familiar with the Mario series, you may skip this section, sorry). The first page Luigi showed Sonic had a sketch of a large golden coin. "First off, this is the currency of the Mushroom Kingdom. There is no specific name for them, so everyone just calls them gold coins. You'll find several gold coins throughout your journey Sonic, so it's important to grab as many as possible. You can use coins to buy things like nights at the inn, or special items that'll help you on your journey. I'll explain those later.", Luigi flipped a page or two, and showed Sonic a new sketch of what looked like a red mushroom with white spots and, as strange as it may sound, black eyes. Luigi continued, "This one is very important Sonic, so pay attention. This is what is known as a mushroom. That may not sound very interesting, but as you can see from the illustration, this is no ordinary mushroom! Once eaten, you grow three times your normal size, and become a giant!"

"That's crazy talk!", Sonic interrupted with a mix of disbelieve, annoyance, and shock. Luigi shook his head.

"I assure you, it's all true. My brother and I used these mushrooms all the time to fight off Bowser's troops.", Sonic grinned. The sound of growing into a giant **did **sound pretty cool. Luigi continued, "However, if you are hit, hurt, or damaged by an enemy in any way, you'll shrink and revert back to your original size, so be careful." Luigi turned the page once again, and showed the hedgehog an image of what looked like a flower, with a red lair, an orange lair, and a white lair, with eyes in the center that were similar to the mushroom's eyes. "This is called a fire flower. If consumed, the user will have power over fire, and will be able to do thinks like shoot fire balls. It's one of the things that my bro, Mario, is best known for. However, the fire power can only be obtained if you already ate a mushroom, and were three time your size, as odd as that may sound. Also, if you're hit while in fire form, not only will you loose your size, but you'll loose your fire powers as well, so be **extra **careful." Sonic the Hedgehog yawned a bit. He felt like he was talking to Omochao, he was so bored. Luigi ignored this and flipped the page. This time, Luigi showed Sonic a sketch of a star-shaped item with eyes similar to the mushroom and the fire flower. "This is a starman. If you grab one, you will become invincible, and will be able to plow through your enemies like paper! However, the effects are temporary, and only last for a few seconds, so use it wisely.", Luigi flipped the page again, this time to something that looked like a block of bricks. There was also another sketch of a block on the page that had a large '**?**' on it. "This is a brick block. As the name suggests, it's made of bricks, so it's hard to break. You can only smash one if you've eaten a mushroom. If you break one, mostly, you'll get nothing, but sometimes, you can get some gold coins. Also, the brick blocks are known to be suspended in thin air, so you have to jump to hit them.", Sonic's eyes widened a bit at the sound of bricks that can defy gravity. Luigi now pointed at the block with the '**?**' on it. "This is a question mark box. Like the brick block, it is also suspended in thin air. You don't need a mushroom to hit these, and if you do, there is a very large chance you'll get either coins, a mushroom, a fire flower, or a starman." Luigi flipped the page once again. This time, Sonic saw a sketch of some weird-looking green tube. "This is a warp pipe. If you travel down one of these pipes, you can go to underground rooms to collect treasures or you can magically warp to another area of the kingdom, hence the term 'warp pipe'." At this point, Sonic was about to collapse from boredom. (A note to the readers: I know this is getting incredibly long and boring I KNOW. Please bear with me. It wouldn't make sense if Sonic automatically knew this stuff! A good story must be told **right**! It's only a little bit more, I promise!) Luigi fumbled through a few more pages, and came across an important sketch. There were a bunch of creepy looking creatures in it, so Sonic assumed he was going to learn how to fight now.

"Finally, these are the kind of creatures Bowser has under his command.", Luigi first pointed to a brown mushroom-shaped creature with fangs. "This is a Goomba. They used to be citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom, but when Bowser rose to power, they turned into traitors and left us to serve Bowser. One stomp on the head turns them into mush." He then pointed to a strange turtle on two legs. "This is a Koopa Troopa, or Koopa for short. Not all Koopas are evil, but the majority are loyal to Bowser. Some of them have wings, can fly, and are known as Paratroopas. Stomping on them once makes them retreat into their shells; then you can use that shell to attack other enemies.", Luigi then pointed to a creature that looked like a Koopa Troopa with a helmet. "This is a Hammer Bro. They are harder to attack, but a stomp on the head usually knocks them out. They usually attack in pairs and attack by throwing hammers at you." Sonic tapped his foot impatiently. He knew the feeling of getting hit with a hammer **way** too well; thanks to a certain pink hedgehog. Luigi finally pointed at one more monster that looked like a red and white-spotted, ticked off Venus fly trap. "This is a Piranha Plant. You need to be **very **careful with these. They live and hide in warp pipes, so if you're not careful, you might try to go down one of those pies and **CRUNCH** it could eat you whole!" Sonic shuddered at the thought of something like that happening. Luigi shut the book and stowed it into his pocket. "There are many more enemies to tell you about, but I'll stop here because I'm under the impression that I'm boring you." Sonic sighed and rolled his eyes.

"No Luigi, what gave you **that** idea?", Sonic sarcastically asked. Sonic tried to wrap it up. "So anyway, I basically just have to grab coins, go down pipes, hit bricks, get some 'shrooms, and jump on foes right?"

"For the most part, yes.", Luigi answered. Sonic winked and began to rub a finger under his nose.

"Ya know, if you just told me **that**, you could have saved yourself a whole bunch of trouble." (And saved the fans a ton of reading.) After Sonic said this, Luigi sunk his head in embarrassment.

"Heh heh, I suppose you're right.", Luigi replied. A sweat drop fell from the back of Sonic's head. At that instant, Luigi's head jerked back up, "Oh wait, there is one thing that I almost forgot.", Sonic stared at Luigi clueless as the man in green dug deep into his overalls and pulled out what looked like a humongous steel sledgehammer! "Here take this!", Luigi said handing the sledgehammer to Sonic.

"Aside from stomping on your enemies, you could also whack them around with this. Mario and I used hammers quite often, especially, on the bigger enemies. That's Mario's hammer. Before you showed up, when he was fighting Bowser, he got disarmed and his hammer went askew across the room. He vanished in the bright light before he could reclaim it. I picked it up while you were getting your injuries looked at. I have my own hammer with me, so you can borrow Mario's if you'd like.", Sonic stared at the hammer as if it were a log of pastrami.

"Well... err... thanks Luigi. That's really nice of you, but, could you hold on to it for me? Personally, I wouldn't be caught dead using a weapon. I'll ask you for the hammer whenever I'll need it, okay?" Luigi took the sledgehammer back from Sonic.

"Fair enough", sighed Luigi while he slid the sledgehammer back into his overalls, "But that's just extra weight that **I'll **have to carry.", Luigi mumble under his breath. He looked up at Sonic and continued. "Well anyway, now that you know the ways of the Mushroom World, do you think you're ready to take it on?" Luigi asked Sonic. Sonic didn't answer Luigi. He just looked forward beyond the path, past Luigi. Suddenly, Sonic the Hedgehog ran past Luigi, catching Luigi off guard.

"Do you even have to ask?", Sonic yelled to Luigi without looking back. Luigi sighed, and shook his head.

"Hey wait for me!", he shouted while he ran after Sonic. Their adventure had officially begun.

Down the trail, Sonic came across a lone question mark box. Sonic jumped up and hit it, and to his pleasure, out popped out a mushroom. It was a slippery mushroom, but Sonic was able to jump and nab it. He chowed down on it, and sure enough, hit body size nearly tripled in size.

"Oh yeah baby. I'm liking this!", Sonic shouted as he gazed upon his grand size. At this time, Sonic was ambushed by an upcoming lowly Goomba. Sonic tisked at it and stomped it flat without second thought. After breaking the upcoming brick block/question mark patterned row of block, Sonic gained his first two gold coins. Getting a bit cocky, Sonic bountifully leaped over four warp pipes, stomping on three goombas in the process. Sonic and Luigi's travels came to a slight halt when they realized they were coming up to a nearby bottomless pit. As they stared into the abyss they could tell it would be a **long** way down if one were to fall. Luigi was hesitant at first, but Sonic without batting an eye gracefully leaped over the pit, and was rewarded up ahead with another question mark box. This time, upon hitting the box, Sonic the Hedgehog was greeted by a tiny fire flower. To Sonic's absolute shock, his quill turned from a calm blue, to a blazing red!

"Sheesh, I'm photo negative of my former self! First I go from super fast to super slow, then I turn from a blue hedgehog to a red hedgehog?! Heh Heh, if only Knuckles could see me now!", Sonic said to himself in astonishment. Luigi shrugged this comment off, not knowing what or who this 'Knuckles' person was.

Continuing on his way, Sonic leaped over another bottomless pit and got ambushed by two more Goombas and a Koopa Troopa. Mischievously grinning to himself, Sonic brought out his fist as if he were punching the air, and from it came three fire balls that burnt the poor Goombas to a crisp and scared the Koopa Troopa into retreating into it's shell. Without thinking twice, Sonic jumped on the shell, which sent the shell flying down the path, knocking out six Goombas that came their way. Sonic was feeling at the top of his game, however he got so wound up in showing off to Luigi, he forgot to look where he was going, and didn't see the hazard coming right towards him. The Koopa shell which had wiped out all of those Goombas had ricocheted off a stone structure that was in the middle of the path and was headed right toward Sonic and Luigi! By the time Sonic looked ahead of him and saw the upcoming danger, it was already two late. The shell struck Sonic right in the shins, causing the hedgehog to fall over and buckle up in pain. The shell did not slow down an inch as it rapidly made it's way toward Luigi. Thinking fast, Luigi jumped up in the air, and struck the shell with his feet, stopping it in it's tracks. Luigi then turned his attention to the fallen hedgehog to see if he was alright. In front of his eyes, Luigi shook his head as he saw Sonic's blazing red fur turn back to it's cool blue and his body shrink back down to one-third it's size. Sonic the Hedgehog grumbled as he made his way back onto his feet and saw that he had lost both his new fire abilities and his giant size.

"You could have warned me that the shell was coming back you know.", Sonic grumbled at Luigi. As he glared coldly at Luigi, Luigi could tell that Sonic was ready to throttle him.

"I thought you saw it coming", Luigi innocently claimed while shrugging. Luigi and Sonic looked behind them as they saw the shell wobble back and forth. Out from the tiny green shell came the owner; the Koopa. The Koopa Troopa mumbled some nasty things about Sonic and Luigi as it quickly scuttled out of harms way. Shrugging to himself, Sonic the Hedgehog walked up to the stone structure that the Koopa shell had ricocheted off of. Kicking it a little bit, Sonic called out to Luigi.

"So what is this thing anyway?", Sonic asked Luigi. As Luigi rubbed his chin, he climbed up the structure, as he looked on ahead of the path, he could see that there were several others of this same thing.

"I... I believe that these are the ruins of a small staircase.", Luigi called down to Sonic. Sonic came up the tiny steps, and as he looked afar, he could see that there were at least three other stair cases to nowhere up ahead. As Sonic stared confused at the figures, Luigi suggested something, "The Koopa Kingdom has been around for centuries.", he said, "Perhaps these are the remains of some ancient structure."suggested Luigi. Both Sonic and Luigi shrugged at the same time and continued on there way.

Sonic and Luigi jumped over the gap from the first staircase to the second, and then jumped from the second to the third. There was a bottomless pit between the gap of the third and fourth structured. Swallowing their courage, Sonic and Luigi leaped over the gap, and cleared the structure with ease. Leaping over an open warp pipe, Sonic jumped up and hit a question mark box, gaining one gold coin. While doing this, Luigi was being attacked by two random Goombas. Luigi did not even break a sweat as he leaped up and flattened both Goombas in one bounce. Not much further up ahead, Sonic and Luigi came up to another warp pipe. As they stood on top of the pipe, they were forced to come to a stop. In their way was a giant stone staircase that was probably four times as big as the other structures behind them. Sonic stared up at the giant staircase to nowhere wide-eyed in awe. He could not see over the structure, thus had no idea what to expect from beyond that point. Also, it looked so large, he doubted he could climb back over it if he wanted to go back, so he had a feeling in his gut that beyond that point there would be no turning back. Suddenly, Sonic was snapped out of his thought as Luigi muttered something to Sonic.

"It's close.", Luigi mumbled while his eyes were still fixed on the stairs, "Bowser's castle is on the other side of these stairs. I can feel it!" Sonic glanced beside him into Luigi's eyes. They looked so serious and almost determined. Smirking to himself, Sonic realized that this was no time for worrying. Chuckling to himself, Sonic sped ahead of Luigi, leaping over every other step as he made his way up the steps. As he planted both feet on the last step, Sonic gave out a giant leap of faith as he flew for a few feet. Below him he could see the silhouette of the monstrous castle. Lava surrounded the entire fortress, almost in the same mater water would surround a normal castle in a mote. Sonic needed a place to land. Ahead of him, Sonic saw a flagpole right next to the caste and on top, proudly waving, was a black flag with a red silhouette of Lord Bowser's head: his trade mark signal. Sonic grabbed onto the flagpole and slowly slid his way down it, as not to draw too much attention to himself. As he made his way to the bottom, Sonic the Hedgehog looked up and saw Luigi mimicking his actions. As Luigi grabbed the flagpole, he grabbed the flag and brought it down with him, as a way of defacing Bowser's Kingdom. As Luigi touched the ground, Sonic came up to him.

"Was taking down the flag **really **necessary?", Sonic asked Luigi. Luigi paused for a couple of seconds, and them calmly yet smugly he answered.

"Yes, as a matter of fact it was." Luigi answered. Sonic shrugged his shoulders as he strolled his way up to the castle grounds. Staring up at the grand fortress, he whistled to himself.

"So, **this** is _Le Forte de Koopa_?", Sonic chuckled to himself, "Please, this place isn't even that big! We'll be in and out in no time!"

"Big things come in small packages.", Luigi cooly answered while looking up at the castle himself, "I know this place better than you do Sonic, and let me tell you that this place is so laced with booby traps that it's a miracle that the place is considered habitable, so please be extra careful, and try not to... _**hey what are you doing?!**_", Luigi looked down from Bowser's castle he saw the Sonic the Hedgehog was no longer by his side. As Luigi looked on ahead, he saw that, in fact, Sonic simply pushed open the giant wooden doors that guarded the castle, and strolled in. Luigi sprinted after him like a maniac chasing a teenager. As Sonic briskly walked in, he noticed that the entire castle was pitch black. It was so dark, he couldn't even see the nose in front of his face. He mockingly whistled into the darkness in the same way that a master would whistle to his dog.

"Hello? Anyone home?", Sonic playfully yelled. At that very moment, Luigi tore open the doors, sprinted in, and forcefully tackled Sonic to the ground.

"Just what in the world do you think you are **doing?!** Are you **trying** to get yourself killed?", Luigi coldly hissed at Sonic. As they lied there on the floor of Bowser's castle in the pitch darkness, Sonic sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Will you relax Luigi?", Sonic groaned while trying to push Luigi off of his blue spikes. "Obviously nobody is home. Bowser must still be out, meaning that snagging the Heart Crystal will be a breeze!" Luigi was still unsure.

"No. Something's wrong here. Something is very wrong. Didn't you notice that the defense of the castle on the way over here was surprisingly weak. Don't you think that it was a tad odd that we were able to just waltz up to the castle door and briskly walk in without **any** form of attack from Bowser's guards? Isn't it weird that nobody has come after us yet? Don't you think it's odd that it's pitch black in here, despite this being the **capital building **of an entire nation?! I'm, telling you this is not right!", Suddenly, Luigi came to a shocking realization and let out a loud gasp, "Wait a minute... **it's a trap!**", At the very moment that Luigi shouted those words, a quiet rumbling could be heard from beneath the floor of the castle, as the foundation began to quake, Luigi and Sonic found themselves unable to stand up or balance themselves. Without any second warning, much to the shock of both Sonic and Luigi, the floor suddenly gave out!

The two heroes were suddenly cast into further darkness as they plummeted from the trap. Sonic shut his eyes with fear. He was too careless as to simply walk through an unsecured door like that. Sonic was so used to simply dodging out of the way with his agility if there was a trap that he just wasn't thinking clearly, and now he was paying for it. As Sonic opened his eyes again, he could see that there was a dull light glowing at the bottom of the pit. This was it; unless they thought of a plan now, Sonic and Luigi would be toast! Sonic shut his eyes once more and waited for the shock of the impact from the ground to coarse through his body. He hit the ground! Strangely, as he lied there on the ground, he realized that his impact actually wasn't that hard. In fact, the impact felt kind of thick and squishy, as if he fell on some sort of mat. However, when Sonic looked down to see what he landed on, he was shocked to discover that underneath him was none other than a face down Luigi. As Sonic struggled to get off of Luigi embarrassed , he came to the conclusion that Luigi must have taken the full force of the fall, and then had the discomfort of being landed on by Sonic, thus cushioning his fall. Luigi arose from his fall, patting some of the dirt off of his overalls. As Sonic awkwardly let out a small chuckle, Luigi angrily glared at him. Luigi then swallowed what was left of his pride and just brushed it off. Sonic put his hands on his hips as he scanned around the area he and Luigi fell to. A dull orangish glow flickered off of the cold gray stone walls.

"Hmmmmm... I think we're in some kind of dungeon.", Sonic mumbled to Luigi as his eyes strayed. Suddenly a loud voice boomed out behind the two heroes, causing them both to jump in shock.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA, **FOOLS**!", the voice echoed. Sonic and Luigi jerked their heads around and found the cause of the voice. Behind them was a giant gap in the dungeon that was filled to the top with hot molten lava. The glow of the lava danced around the room, giving the owner of the voice an even more demonic and menacing appearance than usual. Across the large pool of lava was a rickety wooden bridge that did not look to sturdy if you tried walking on it. Standing on top of the bridge was none other than the king of cruel himself: Lord Bowser! As he stood there eyeing the two heroes with bloodthirsty hatred in his eyes, he bellowed out another laugh. "Bwahahaha! I'm sad to say that captain green 'stache over there is right! It **is**a trap; and I can not believe that you two actually fell for it!" As Bowser began to laugh again, Sonic began to clench his fists and shook them violently, always known for being quick to anger. As he stared deep into Bowser's cold eyes, he grinded his teeth as he remembered everything that Bowser did to him in the past few hours. This time he would pay him back big time! Stepping forward, Sonic and stretched his arm and pointed directly at the Koopa King.

"**You! **You conniving thief! Why did you trick us? Why did you bring us here?", Sonic shouted theses words across the bridge to Bowser. After a short pause, Bowser chuckled lowly and answered the angered blue hedgehog.

"What's this Mario? You're still parading around in that silly form? Hmph, I thought you would have changed back by now.", The king started. This made Sonic grind his teeth even harder. When was this idiot going to realize the he is not this Mario character? Bowser continued. "Yes, it's true, I allowed you two pesky plumbers to follow me back to this castle. I knew that since I had taken your 'Chaos Emerald', you would come back here to try to get it back. I also knew that since you were weakened in our last fray Mario, I would have the advantage over you. I remembered that once you transformed into this new form of yours, your agility greatly increased. That's when I realized that I was getting pummeled because you had the field advantage since their area was more spaced out. That's why I rigged this!", Bowser announced guiding his hand over the wooden bridge and lava, "In a more narrow environment, I can't possibly loose! That's why I allowed you to follow me! That's why I lowered my defenses so you could get here! That's why I let you simply waltz into my domain! Finally, after all of these years, **prepare to die Mario!**", Bowser bellowed. He did not give Sonic any time to react. As soon as he finished his little speech, he immediately began to bombard the two with throwing hammers, and blasts of fire.

"Get down!", Sonic screamed as he tackled Luigi to the ground. As the two hugged the cold and unforgiving stone ground, they had just barely missed getting charred by the giant blast of fire. Sonic could have sworn that he felt of his spikes get singed. Sonic could feel his throat getting dry as sweat began to pour out of his body.. His hands began to tremble. As he felt his heart beating faster and faster in his chest, Sonic realized that for the first time in a long time, he was actually scarred! As they barley rolled out of the way of Bowser's hammers, Luigi let out a small whimper.

"He... he has the advantage! What are we gonna do Sonic?", Luigi didn't know it at the time, but those words pierced through Sonic the Hedgehog like a hot pin through ice. As he lay their on the ground, Sonic was immediately reminded of his closest buddy and surrogate little brother, Tails. Sonic remembered when Tails would say the things to him when they fought against Dr. Eggman. Back then, Sonic had always been calm and cool. He always found the right things to say to Tails to stop him from worrying. He took a good look at himself now as he desperately tried to avoid Bowser's constant blows. If the Sonic of the past could see him now, he would sulk. Sonic finally realized that until this very moment, he had been using his sly and relaxed attitude to secretly hide the fact that he was dreadfully nervous about the fact that now he was seemingly powerless without his speed. For Maria's sake, he couldn't even do the simplest thing as a spin dash! As the image of the two-tailed fox swam in Sonic's head, he realized that even without his speed, he had to be strong, and had to be just as brave if he was ever going to get home to Mobius and see his best buddy again. He could not and would not allow himself to get one upped by some clown like Bowser.

As Sonic held Luigi down, he scanned around the area of the dungeon. There had to be **something **he could use or **someway **he could defeat Bowser. Sonic looked at Bowser as he threw another round of hammers and spewed out another blast of fire, he looked at the lava below them, he looked at Bowser's tough and spiky shell,l he looked at the rickety wooden bridge, and he looked at the support beams that held up the bridge over the lava. The bridge sure didn't look sturdy, that was for sure. Suddenly, after a moment or two of pondering, Sonic developed a brilliant idea! As the two, rolled away from another fire blast, Sonic looked back at the frightened Luigi.

"Luigi, do you still have that sledgehammer that I asked you to hold on to?", Sonic asked Luigi. Luigi thought a moment or two, and then suddenly realized what Sonic was trying to do.

"Oh, I see.", Luigi smugly mumbled as he dug through his overalls and pulled out the giant hammer. He passed it on to Sonic, who held hit firmly with both hands. Sonic then proceeded to instruct Luigi.

"Alright remember, when I say 'Go', cover my back and sprint behind me as fast as you can.", Sonic instructed. Luigi solemnly nodded**. **At that very moment, Bowser temporarily stopped his attacks.

"Come on Mario!", Bowser whined, "If I'm going to crush you, at least put up **some** sort of fight!" This remark set Sonic the Hedgehog over the edge.

"GO!", shouted Sonic. Both of the heroes immediately got up from the ground and charged their way across the bridge. Seeing the two finally go on the offence, Bowser started his attacks back up. Bowser started by throwing another round of hammers at them and then spewing out a fire ball. "I'm **not **going to tell you this **again**!...", Sonic shouted as he swung Mario's hammer in one direction, deflecting all of the hammers, which were hit into the lava. Sonic and Luigi kept sprinting toward Bowser. "...I am **not** Mario!...", Sonic swung the sledgehammer in the opposite direction which created a vacuum which neutralized the fireball, thus starving it and rendering it useless. "...My name is **Sonic**!...", Sonic caught Bowser by surprise by ducking and sliding between Bowser's fat scaly legs while Luigi jumped over Bowser and stomped on his head in the process. "...**Sonic the Hedgehog!**", Sonic bellowed as he and Luigi made their way to the other side of the bridge. Without any hesitation, Sonic took Mario's sledgehammer, and whacked away at the support beams, shattering them into pieces. Bowser let out a large gulp, as he knew what this would soon lead to. Just as predicted, the bridge began to give out plank by plank. Bowser fell in the lava pit. Sonic watched wide-eyed as he saw his new enemy violently thrash about in the molten lava.

"**MY LORD**!", a voice screeched from behind Sonic and Luigi. Shoving them out of the way was the old hag known a Kammy Koopa. "Sir, please give me your hand!", the elderly magikoopa screamed as she watched in horror as her lord and king sunk lower and lower into the lava. Bowser was too distracted by the immense pain to listen to a word Kammy was saying. He just had his dark eyes coldly focused on Sonic the Hedgehog. Before the last bit of him was swallowed by the lava, Bowser screamed out one last statement to his new arch enemy.

"The next time we meet, I'll take away more than just your agility blue one! I'll get my revenge if it's the last thing that I'll ever do! Just you wait and see... **Sonic the Hedgehog!**" As soon as Bowser said all of this, the last bit of him was swallowed up by the lava. Lord Bowser was gone.

"Lord Bowser!", Kammy shrieked as the last bit of her master disappeared. She dropped to her knees. Sonic had no time for sympathy.

"Alright you old hag, hand over my Chaos Emerald and return my speed to me, and maybe I'll let you go... maybe.", Sonic sternly demanded getting into a fighting stance.

"... And hand over your kingdom's Heart Crystal!", Luigi added in. Kammy Koopa's hands began to shake with remorse and anger. Suddenly, Kammy stopped her shaking, and actually relaxed her grip a little bit.

"After all of theses years... I **knew **mentioning the Heart Crystals to Lord Bowser would be a bad idea from the very beginning, but I didn't listen to my gut.", Kammy sadly mumbled to herself. She raised her wand and twirled it in a clockwise circle. Out of a purple puff of smoke, the Koopa Kingdom's grey Heart Crystal fell out of nowhere and landed roughly on the ground at the feet of Sonic and Luigi. "You have defeated us for the time being. You won the Heart Crystal fair and square.", Kammy continued. As Sonic looked down at the Heart Crystal, Kammy got a gleam in her eyes. Quickly, before either Sonic or Luigi could react, Kammy swiftly raised her wand yet again and twirled it in a counterclockwise circle. By the time Sonic and Luigi realized what she had done, Kammy Koopa had already disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Get back here!", Sonic screamed at the smoke. It was too late. The smoke had already cleared and Kammy Koopa had vanished. Suddenly, a voice echoed off the walls of the dungeon out of nowhere, like a voice over an intercom.

"Sorry rodent but your Chaos Emerald is in another castle!", the voice shouted, and then nothing more. Sonic seemed confused by this remark.

"My Chaos Emerald is in another castle?", Sonic asked Luigi, scratching his head. Luigi explained to Sonic.

"Bowser is notoriously known for having **a lot** of castles in his kingdom. This must be just one of dozens.", Luigi stated to Sonic. This highly displeased Sonic as he pounded the ground.

"Rats!", Sonic yelled, "I can't believe we let that old hag get away! She could be anywhere by now! Now how am I supposed to get my speed back?", Sonic shouted. Luigi pointed his attention toward the pool of lava that lay behind them.

"This is not the first time Bowser has fallen in lava you know. Lava can not kill him; his shell is just too strong.", Luigi bent over and gently picked up the grey Heart Crystal as if it were a sleeping infant. He handed the gem to Sonic, who stared at the crystal in awe. The Koopa King was right. The power of a Hear Crystal **did **feel identical to that of a Chaos Emerald. As Sonic brought his attention back to Luigi, Luigi continued. "He will eventually get out of there you know, and when he does, he will be twice as determined to get the remaining Heart Crystals, especially since we have just taken away his crystal: a Koopa Kingdom royal heirloom. This means that he will be back, and if we run into Bowser again, we will be sure to run into that old hag again, which will give you another chance to get your speed back. This little attack merely bought us some time to escape." As Sonic twiddled the crystal between his boney fingers, a wave of slight relief washed over him now that he knew he did not actually kill somebody. Sonic chuckled to himself again.

"So, with one Heart Crystal down, that means that there are six more to go right? Where does you're little book say we should go next?", Sonic cheerfully asked Luigi. Luigi immediately snapped back into focus. He took back Mario's sledgehammer and packed it back into his overalls for the next time Sonic needed it. Luigi then dug into another of his overall pockets and pulled out the tiny tattered book of the Heart Crystals. He scanned each page and licked his thumb every time he turned a page. Finally, he came to a stop at a certain page towards the middle of the book.

"Hmm... there seems to be a world map in here", he announced under his breath, "Judging by our location on the map, I would say that the closest kingdom holding a Heart Crystal would have to be... Hyrule!", After a long pause of awkward silence Luigi couldn't help but snicker to himself, "Okay, I'm just kidding!", Sonic looked at him strangely, raising an eyebrow at Luigi obviously not understanding the joke. Luigi calmed his laughter, "But seriously, according to this map, I believe that the next closest location is roughly a two day walk from here. Now come on, let's get out of here. If I remember this castle correctly, there should be a trap door somewhere around here that should take us back to the surface outside." As Luigi searched around the area for the door out of there, Sonic let out a long and loud groan.

"Two **days?!**", Sonic whined, "Sheesh, I bet it could have been two hours if I could run again!", The image of Tails immediately popped back into Sonic's head, so he swallowed his whiny attitude. He balled one of his hands into a fist and brought it up to his chest, "Don't worry Tails, I willget back to Mobius real soon, and we **will **see each other again someday, I promise.", Sonic whispered to himself. Luigi, now quite a few meters away shouted out to Sonic.

"Hey, I found the way out of here! Did you say something just now?", Luigi shouted. Sonic froze for a moment, and then put a classic grin on his face.

"Nothing Luigi!", Sonic enthusiastically shouted back to Luigi, "Come on, we're outta here!"

* * *

**With their first Heart Crystal in their possession, Sonic and Luigi make their way out of Bowser's crazy castle, and back on the road towards their next destination. It will be a long and rough journey for Sonic the Hedgehog, but in his heart, he knows that if he holds his friends in front of him, he will be seeing them again in no time! But where are Sonic and Luigi headed? Who's in possession of the next Heart Crystal**, **and will they give it up so easily? Check out the next chapter as we come back to the adventures of Super Mario and Miles "Tails" Prower in there search for the seven Chaos Emeralds! So, this was my tribute to the old Super Mario games and I hope you liked it. That's another chapter under our belts, huh? From the bottom of my heat, I really want to thank you all for being so patient and I sincerely apologize for taking so long to finish this chapter. It took nearly a whole season to complete, and you guys shouldn't have to wait that long for one chapter! However, despite my laziness, there is a reason why it took so long, and you guys only deserve an honest explanation! You see, I out of everything I have written so far, I would have to say that chapter 5 was probably the most boring and least fun chapter to write so far. In fact, this tribute grew so boring, that when I was roughly halfway done writing the chapter, I put production on hold, and was actually considering whether or not I should cancel the series altogether. Also, during the time I was inspired to create an entirely new FanFiction entitled ****Death of a King**** (you can view it in the Mario section). Since the creative juices were flowing stronger for me with ****Death of a King**** than ****Mario and Sonic&Crossover Chaos!****, I decided to work on and finish up that story for a while. However, I then realized that I couldn't just abandon this story with a half written chapter, so I simply decided to simply mark this story under hiatus, and continue it once I completed the other FanFiction. So the story was not canceled, it was just on hiatus. As you can see, I did not cancel this story, nor do I plan to do so. The story will continue as planned, but I refuse to give myself deadlines from now on because I have more ideas for other stories that I might want to try out sooner or later! One more thing: I promise that this is my last tribute chapter (these things were so boring to write). From now on, the actions of the story will be from my will (however, Sonic and Mario will be returning to familiar places within their respective franchises). I have most of the places planned out, it's all just a matter of putting which areas in which order. I hope to have chapter 6 out within the near future, and I hope that you check out some of my other stories too! That's all for now, sayonara! **


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